Free Republic

Yuri Maltsev, former senior advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, stated in a May 1996 interview: "Russia has become the criminal capital of the world. In Russia today, the organized Mafia and the government are one and the same thing. They're two hands of the same ruling elite." This state of affairs began with the founding of the Soviet state. In a 1995 interview: Former Lithuanian Vice President Algirdas Katkus stated that although "Westerners believe that the Mafia is the product of post-Communism ... in reality it is organized, staffed, and controlled by the KGB...

..frenzy over the Katrina tapes stands in stark contrast to..disinterest of Democrats and the media in the Saddam tapes showing Iraq had WMD and Bush didn't lie....just before Operation Iraqi Freedom both Israeli intelligence and U.S. satellite surveillance detected large amounts of military material moving from Iraq to Syria....not a panicked move...it was a well-planned operation conducted with the assistance of Russia, to which Iraq was $8 billion in debt, much of it for weapons. Russia was worried about what coalition forces might find.According to John Shaw, former deputy undersecretary for international technology security, the WMD were moved out of...