Top US Spy points finger at Putin

Relations between the US and Russia appeared to sink to a new low yesterday after Moscow angrily dismissed accusations that democracy in Russia had taken a "back step".

Too damn right. At least democracy exists in Russia, even if it isn't perfect in every way. The United States, on the other hand, having abandoned what semblance of democracy it had, is busy projecting its flaws onto others.

Russia's foreign ministry called the accusation by Mike McConnell, Washington's national intelligence director, in a speech to the US Senate's armed services committee on Tuesday, "outmoded" and "totally groundless".

Such silly and petty accusations were never in mode and have lways been totally groundless. It still doesn't stop Uncle Sam's megaphone merchants from trying to paint Russia as a demon though.

Mr McConnell, an expert on the former Soviet Union,

An expert, along the lines of the Russian expert Condi "Lizard" Rice, who can barely speak a few lines of basic Russian without making fundamental mistakes?

said Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, was preparing to fix next year's presidential elections so that the Kremlin's preferred candidate would win.

The fixing of elections is far more likely to happen in Washington than it would in Moscow. Sorry, McConnell, but the evidence paints a different picture. As they say, don't point the finger, as there are four more pointing back at you.

"The march to democracy has taken a back step. And now there are more arrangements to control the process and the populace and the parties and so on, to the point of picking the next leader of Russia," Mr McConnell said, at a hearing to discuss global threats to the US.

All your bad-mouthing of Russia simply won't wash, McConnell. The truth of the matter is that Russia is regaining her power after the US-inspired/aided rape and pillage of the country during the presidency of the idiot Yeltsin. Russia is doggedly independent and won't bow to the snakes in Washington. That bothers the likes of you, doesn't it, McConnell?

"That's my worry, is the march toward democracy, the way we understand it ... now being controlled in a way that it is less of a democratic process."

Unless this statement was put in context, I would have no choice but to assume that it was written about the United States. As it is in the context of an attack on Russia, it comes across as yet another instance of the projecting of the flaws of the United States onto others.

Mr Putin had surrounded himself with "extremely conservative" advisers suspicious of America, he said.

Would you blame him? Would you blame any country for being suspicious of a belligerent, sociopathic bully? Would you blame the Russians for being extremely suspicious when the self-appointed spreader of "freedumb and demonocracy" has established bases in practically every country bordering Russia?

Yesterday the Kremlin accused Mr McConnell of harbouring obsolete and outmoded notions about Russia. The intelligence chief's assessments were "totally unfounded", the foreign ministry's spokesman, Andrei Krivtsov, said. The exchange came amid a sharp deterioration in US-Russian relations to what analysts said yesterday was probably their worst level since the US-led Nato bombing of Serbia in 1999.

Relations between Russia and United States certainly have become much frostier. However, anyone with two eyes in their head and a brain to match can see who the instigator of this "new cold war" is.

Moscow has been angered by the US administration's plans to site two anti-missile interceptor and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Mr Putin has ridiculed America's claim that the sites are meant to deter a possible rogue attack by North Korea or Iran and has said they are clearly aimed at Russia and its vast nuclear arsenal.
Last month he delivered his most scathing attack yet on US power. Speaking in Munich, he accused the US of acting unilaterally and seeking to become the world's sole decision-making "master".
Analysts said yesterday that public opinion on both sides was hardening.

Public opinion around the world is hardening and is shifting rapidly against the United States. As much as it might irritate the likes of McConnell, Vladimir Putin is winning this little war of words being played out on the world stage.

"In Russia, Putin's speech has produced a tremendous effect among those who want Russian primacy and think in terms of Russia's empire," said Victor Kremenyuk, deputy director of Moscow's US-Canada Institute.

It is important to those who are thinking in terms of Russian independence and ability to defend itself. If Kremenyuk wants to call that primacy, he is welcome to use the terminology of his choosing.

"In the US, a growing number of people think that Russia has outwitted them.

Duh, gee, really? Dag Nabbit!

Instead of becoming a normal democratic state it has become an energy superpower.

What the freakin' hell constitutes a normal democratic state to these poisonous neocon types? One where elections are routinely stolen and rights abrogated on a daily basis?

They see it both as a threat to the US and its allies in Europe."

McConnell, Kremenyuk and their ilk can speak on behalf of their own. Any sensible European knows where the real threat comes from.

Other observers said they expected the chill in US-Russian relations to go on beyond the Bush-Putin era. "I think we are very close to an arms race," Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow bureau of the World Security Institute, a US thinktank, told the Guardian. "Neither side trusts the other. Russia reacts to the missile defence sites. The US reacts to Russia's reaction."

I would be naturally suspicious of any US think tank, and in particular one that calls itself "The World Security Institute", given Uncle Sam's demonstrated penchant for double-speak.

The government-owned newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta said on Wednesday that Russian scientists were alarmed by the US's High-frequency Active Auroral Research Programme, or Haarp. They believed US scientists were close to developing a system that would allow them to disrupt an enemy's entire nuclear capability using ionic rays. Russia was determined to develop a similar technology, the paper reported.

This is not unexpected. That's how it works. The US builds some nasty new weapon and others feel compelled (by their own need for security) to play catch-up.

With increasing talk of a new cold war, Russia's political parties, including the Communists, agreed this week to suspend their differences on foreign policy.

That's good. It is nice that the United States can have a positive influence in the world and even bringing some Единство to the Duma.

"Russia has become stronger and America doesn't like it," Konstantin Kosachev, the head of parliament's foreign affairs committee, told Moskovsky Komsomolets, a mass-circulation daily. "They still have the same notions from the 1990s, when American became the only political power centre on the planet."

Kosachev is right on the money there. The United States wants to be the world power and does not take kindly to any challenges to that power. All empires come to an end, all brutal regimes fall. The end is coming for the ruling junta in the US, and with it will go any future hope of American primacy. Now if only the United States would wake up and smell the coffee before they remain without a friend in the world.

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The Litvinenko Mystery Train

As the Litvinenko Mystery Train rolls on, the theories surrounding his demise appear to be multiplying by the day. There are some who pose as op-ed columnists who appear to have it all sorted out. Charles Krauthammer invokes the scientific principle of Occam’s Razor to support his simplistic and utterly baseless conclusion that Putin is directly responsible for the murder. I don't know why this schmuck garners so many column inches, but he does. His own peculiar brand of bigotry, his blinkered approach and his neo-con rantings collectively wing their merry way across the Atlantic to grace the pages of the Irish Times, which is one more reason I can add to the ever-growing list of reasons why I refuse to buy the paper.

Occam's Razor may well be a suitable means of drawing conclusions from natural phenomena, but as a means of crime-solving, it ranks up there with 'The Butler Did It'. If this principle were to be universally applied to the world of crime detection, every murder will have been carried out by the next-of-kin (for financial motives, of course) and every burglary will have perpetrated by your next-door neighbour. A far more reliable method of getting to the bottom of a complex criminal case is to employ the maxim of Cassius, as quoted by Marcus Tullius Cicero.... "cui bono?". Krauthammer's article deserves a rebuttal, primarily because despite the usual strident self-confidence, it is full of fallacies that are spawned by the simplistic application of a scientific principle to the complexities of human behaviour.

For starters, he claims that the deathbed allegation by Litvinenko - directly accusing Putin of being responsible for his murder - as being a "testimony delivered on the only reliable lie detector ever invented". This is patent nonsense, as the reliability of deathbed lie detector really only comes into play when it is the perpetrator that is dying. Perhaps if Litvinenko was a religious man, and had a belief in an afterlife, he may have been reluctant to bear false witness, but there is no evidence to support this conclusion.

Next up he attempts to relate the murder of Litvinenko to that of Anna Politkovskaya when there is no evidence, not even a the slightest bit, that the two cases are connected. There is also no evidence that the Russian administration was responsible for her murder, but that doesn't stop Mr. Krauthammer from pushing his assumptions as if they were the next best thing to cold, hard facts. He then goes on to drag out that old chestnut - the 'poisoning' of Viktor Yushchenko, which remains unsolved despite a thorough investigation by Ukrainian police. Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com has more than adequately explored the evidence on the Yushchenko poisoning in articles that can be found here, here, and here. Suffice to say that far from being clear, the cause of the disfigurement of Yushchenko is still a mystery.

And one chestnut follows another... Krauthammer claims that "opponents of Putin have been falling like flies. Some jailed, some exiled, some killed.", when in fact it is members of the crimnal, kleptomaniac oligarchy that has gone into self-imposed exile or have found themselves in prison having been found guilty of fraud. He then goes on to make the claim that Russia has a "long and distinguished history of state-sponsored assassination" based solely on the murder of Trotsky and a wild assumption that the attempted assassination of late Pope implicated the involvement of more than just Bulgaria.

These poor, besieged individuals to whom Krauthammer bestows the seemingly innocuous status of "opponents of Putin" were guilty of purloining the natural resources and industries of the former Soviet Union, resources that rightly belonged to everyone in Russia. They did this with a slight of hand and with the assistance of the rigged privatisations of the Yeltsin administration. I find it hard to show these criminals the same sympathy that Mr Krauthammer obviously displays, but then again, perhaps that is because I don't share the same allegiences.

Based on currently available evidence, Russia has no more and no less of a history of state-sponsored targeted murder than any other nation. Indeed, I would hazard a guess that the United States and her allies are far more proficient at 'suiciding' opponents than Russia could ever be. This is, of course, only my opinion.

Next on the menu is the makings of a world-class eulogy..."If we were not mourning a brave man who has just died a horrible death". Give me a break! What's next? The campaign to canonise "Saint Sasha"? While the manner of his death was undoubtedly horrible, it is at least less prolonged than the deaths of those who have been the victims of any one of the cruel and inhumane methods used by the modern war machine, and I don't see Mr Krauthammer carving too many statues to their memories. Indeed, if I recall correctly, he is on frequently on the sidelines waving his pom-poms in support of his home team.

Let's take a moment remember who this guy Litvinenko was. He was an ex-spy and by definition was involved in the very murky underworld of espionage. He had counted numerous dodgy characters amongst his friends. Both Litvinenko and the shady associate he met in the London restaurant - self-styled "professor" and "environmental security expert" Mario Scaramella - have been implicated in arms-trafficking. Mr Scaramella has been arrested on weapons-smuggling charges in Italy, but the anti-Putin, Russphobe chorus seem to be reluctant to make any connection between his activities and the demise of his associate, Litvinenko. Litvinenko was reported to be desperate to get his hands on cash and as a consequence was involved in blackmail schemes with several Russian mafia figures and politicians as the targets.

In a fleeting glimpse of the rational, our esteemed op-ed columnist then points out the way poisoning "evokes the great classical era of raison d’etat rubouts by the Borgias and the Medicis" but then quickly ends this brief excursion to the land of lucidity when he barks that "the first reported radiological assassination in history adds an element of the baroque of which a world-class thug outfit such as the KGB (now given new initials) should be proud." He should remember the old saying - don't point the finger, as there will be four left to point back at you. In the eyes of the world outside of the neo-con world (the neosphere), the contest for "world-class thug outfit" has already finished and has ended with a tie between the CIA and Mossad for first place, with the former KGB taking a poor second place.

In a parting shot, Mr Krauthammer claims that Litivenko may have been 'small fry' but his so-called 'investigations' made him a far more credible target. I hate to burst this bubble, but the evidence points entierely in the other direction. Litvinenko's so-called 'investigations' are widely thought to be little more than the ravings of a lunatic. In one of the books he wrote he accused the Russian government of being responsible for the 1999 terrorist attacks carried out in Russian cities, for which Chechen terrorists were blamed. Not only did he fail to provide any evidence for this, but he then went on to make the utterly ludicruous claims that the FSB was secretly funding al-Qaeda (a database of terrorists for hire set up by the CIA) and that Russia was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001. With a pedigree like that, you can be sure that the guy was not perceived as a threat either by Putin or the FSB.

There's lots more in this story to discuss, but I'll leave it there for now, and perhaps return to it in the New Year. I'll leave you with this story, in The Times, that states "Sources in Spain last week said he had crossed Russian mafia figures. They claimed he had provided information that helped lead to the arrest in May of nine mafia members, including a senior gang leader with interests in Russia and Spain."

Unlike Charles Krauthammer, I can't claim to know who killed Sasha Litvineno. However, I am pretty sure who didn't kill him, and that's the Putin administration.

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Poisonous Minds

The ongoing war of propaganda against Vladimir Putin being played out in the editorial offices and television studios of the western mainstream media plumbs new depths with every passing day. The barrage of differing explanations for the condition and subsequent death of Alexander Litvinenko - with the suspected cause changing almost on a daily basis - looks very much like a classic use of misdirection. First it was thalium, then radioactive thalium and now the story has, for the time being at least, settled on a radioactive isotope, Polonium 210. The only one consistent theme in an otherwise constantly morphing story is the presumed guilt of Vladimir Putin.

The official reason for the all the finger pointing directed at Putin is that Litvinenko, a well-known fierce critic of Putin, had apparently been investigating the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another strident critic of Putin, who was gunned down at her Moscow apartment last month. In the absence of any substantive evidence - the circumstantial evidence that Litvinenko and Putin were far from the best of chums is far from substantive - the Russian president has been indicted, tried and found guilty by a media chorus. A large number of aspects of this case should give any thinking person cause for disquiet.

Public Spectacle
The “hit” was designed from the outset to be a public spectacle. If… and this is an if of monumental proportions… if Putin wanted Litvinenko dead for whatever reason, why on earth would those charged with carrying it out do it in such a sloppy and unprofessional manner? There are those who will argue that it was played out publicly as a warning to others, but this is a specious line of reasoning, not least because there is an assortment of methods for communicating such threats other than via the media in countries that are frequently hostile to Russia and Russian interests.

If he really did choose to publicly execute such a vocal critic, Putin would have to be masochistic beyond belief. As for the method, there are far more reliable methods of “getting the job done” than playing around with dangerous radioactive isotopes. Most if not all of the world’s secret services are well-versed in techniques designed to be indistinguishable from death by natural causes. So again, why choose such a novel and potentially unreliable method?

Attempts by the likes of the BBC to create a link between the Litvinenko case and a tiny number of poisonings carried out during the cold war serve only to add weight to the suspicion that this is a propaganda exercise aimed unfairly and squarely at Russia.

A rare isotope
Polonium, which apparent is the method of assassination du-jour, is considered a very rare element, and is present in uranium ores at around 100 micrograms for every metric ton, making it about 500 times less abundant than radium. It is so rare that it is estimated that only about 100 grams are produced per year. The polonium 210 isotope has a half-life of approximately 138 days, and emits enormous quantities of energy during its decay, sufficient energy to take the temperature of half a gram above 750 Kelvin, in other words, in excess of 470 Celsius. The energy is released in the form of alpha particles, which are hazardous to health only if ingested.

Experts in nuclear chemistry have suggested that large-scale processing equipment, such as a nuclear reactor, would be needed to produce amounts of Polonium 210 sufficient to result in death. According to Dr Andrea Sella, a lecturer in chemistry at University College London, "It is not as simple as the idea that somebody might have broken into a radioactivity cabinet at some local hospital and walked off with some polonium".

Assuming that a nuclear reactor was required to produce the substance, that reactor could just as easily be in Los Alamos or Dimona as it could be in Sarov.

A fierce critic, or a crank?
The charges made by Litvinenko against the Putin administration have frequently been lacking in hard evidence and on occasion have lapsed into bizarre fantasy. He co-authored a book “Blowing up Russia : Terror from Within” in which he accuses the Putin administration of actually responsible for the terrorist attacks on apartment blocks in various Russian cities, for which Chechen terrorists were officially blamed. However, having made the allegation, he failed miserably at producing even a prima-facia case to support his allegations. He also made the ludicrous claims that the FSB was behind the events of September 11th, 2001 and that senior Al-Qa'eda officials were actually agents of Russian intelligence. Litvinenko had a piece published by the now defunct Chechen Press in July of this year where he made the (unsubstantiated) claim that Putin was a paedophile.

Not a Russian Modus Operandi
According to Nigel West, a British intelligence expert, “neither the FSB nor the KGB has ever killed a defector on foreign soil and their predecessors, even under Stalin, did so only once in the case of Walter Krivitsky in Washington in 1941”. He stated that he would be “most surprised if the FSB had tried to kill Mr Litvinenko because it would fly in the face of 65 years of Soviet or Russian practice”.

The Israel connection
According to Israeli news media, Litvinenko had been passing documents to a former Yukos CEO in Israel in the months before his death. The suggestion by this former CEO that the information was harmful to the Russian administration is only to be expected and should be taken with a pinch of salt. After all, it was Putin who put an end to the reign of the kleptocrats, so it is not beyond belief that they would be committed in their attempts to besmirch his reputation.

You can tell a lot about a man from his choice of friends
Boris Abramovich Berezovsky. Need I say any more? Berezovsky is Russian Jewish billionaire who had served as Secretary of the Russian National Security Council, and who went into exile when it seemed he would be a victim of Putin's campaign against shady business practices. In an article entitled "Godfather of the Kremlin?" by Paul Klebnikov, published by Forbes magazine, Berezovsky was portrayed as a mafia don who thought nothing of having his rivals murdered. Although Berezovsky sued the magazine for libel and the magazine subsequently retracted both claims. Klebnikov made similar allegations in a book with the same title as the article. Berezovsky did not legally contest the claims made by Klebnikov in that book. Klebnikov went on to become the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes and was gunned-down in Moscow on the July 9th 2004.

Who benefits?
The web of intrigue weaved by the media on the death of Litvinenko reads like a thriller, albeit a third-rate bargain-basement offering written without the either the panache or knowledge of the likes of John Le Carré. Given the complete absence of substantive evidence, there is only one reliable way of getting close to what might be the truth behind images produced with smoke and mirrors – that is to ask “Cui Bono... Who benefits?” or to put it another way, "follow the money".

There is no shortage of potential candidates and Putin certainly is not one of them. The burgeoning Russophobe club has a diverse membership, ranging from assorted oligarchs and bankers - people who are almost universally reviled amongst ordinary Russians - who are very upset that their playthings have been taken from them and that Putin has put a stop to their perfidious theft. After that there are a host of multinational companies and their shareholders who have been denied unfettered access to Russian resources. Finally we come to the Chechens, and their assorted hangers-on in the west, many of who are hailing from the neo-con camp, such as the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya.

Russia has also proven to be an extremely tough nut to crack in energy supply negotiations and a persistent thorn in the side of the axis of hypocrisy, both in respect to their invasion of Iraq and to the putative invasion of Iran. Indeed, Putin has also had the audacity to enter into sizeable contracts to supply advanced weaponry to Iran.

There are plenty of individuals, organisations and governments who would prefer that Russia and her leadership tow the line. Those same individuals, organisations and governments want Putin to permit, if not actively encourage, the pillage of Russian resources by multi-national corporations. There is no shortage of parties who would stoop to such a low in order to punish a recalcitrant Putin.

Much like the poisoning of Yushchenko, the demise of Litvinenko will be continually discussed and disected in the media, with the narrative shifting as required, but the blame remaining locked on to the Kremlin. However, no serious effort will be made to find the perpetrators or solve the crime, as it is far easier to continue to use the affair as a foreign policy stick with which to beat Putin, demonise the FSB and force Russia to once again open its doors to wholesale larceny.

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Ex-KGB officer poisoned in UK

According to reports from the BBC and The Telegraph, UK police are investigating the alleged poisoning of a former KGB agent and critic of President Vladimir Putin who has been living in exile in Britain.

Litvinenko, who has a Ukrainian surname, despite being referred to as "Russian" by both the BBC and The Telegraph, has written several articles and contributed to books critical of Putin. His writings generally attempt to demonstrate that the most fundamental problems in modern Russia do not result from the smash-and-grab free-for-all of the so-called "liberal radical reforms" of the Yeltsin era, but instead from covert resistance to these reforms from within the Russian special services. He also espouses some very far-fetched beliefs - such as this article where he makes an outlandish and bizarre comparison between Putin and Hitler.

He also claimed that the right hand of Bin Laden, the Number Two in "Al-Qaeda" was trained at the secret base of the Russian secret services on Caucasus. Given that Al-Qaeda is nothing more than a collection of conveniently placed mirrors accompanied by the requisite amount of smoke, nothing more than a figment of fevered imaginations, and that no proof has been produced that the organisation actually exists, this claim is patently ludicrous.

According to newsru.com, Litvinenko was invited to a London restaurant by an Italian citizen, Mario Scaramella, who claimed he had some important information about a recent murder of Anna Politkovskaya. It is at this meeting where Mr Litvinenko was supposedly poisoned with Thalium, an extremely toxic heavy metal.

The Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets claims that Mario Scaramella is a CIA agent, whereas the ChechenPress claim that Mr. Scaramella is an FSB agent in Italy and a close friend and business partner of the FSB deputy chief Kolmogorov. They also claim that the Italian visited the FSB headquarters in Moscow several times.

It is possible that either of these claims are true, that Scaramella is an agent for the FSB or CIA. It is also possible that both claims are false - that Scaramella has nothing to do with either agency or the poisoning. It is even possible that both claims are simultaneously true, as double agents have not been exactly uncommon throughout history.

Given the accusations, counter-accusations and rhetoric on both sides, it can be difficult to discover what really happened. As always with such events, the first question I ask is "cui bono?". Who benefits?

Does it really benefit Putin that much to be rid of someone whose claims were so clearly subjective and often off-the-wall? Or does it benefit those who want to weaken the resurgent power that is Russia, in order to continue their previously-interrupted looting of Russian resources, unhampered by a strong Russian leadership? Does such an attempted murder benefit Russia and the Russian leadership, or would it be more beneficial, in a propaganda sense, to the country that is busy building bases in almost every state bordering Russia?

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Media disinformation and the renewed demonisation of Russia

Over the past year, the previously understated but regular drip-feed of articles in the Western media critical of the Russian establishment has become more frenzied and purposeful, reflecting an increase in the level of hostility towards Russia from the powers-that-be in the West. Of course, no state is perfect and no state should be beyond criticism, but I can’t help but wonder why Russia is the target of such much condemnation when their ‘crimes’ whereas the absolute tyranny being imposed on the people of Uzbekistan by Islam Karimov goes relatively unreported.

Behind the media disinformation - the veiled allegations that President Putin was somehow complicit in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya; the deliberate misinterpretation of a deeply ironic remark made to the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about Israeli President Moshe Katsav; the customary wailing about the “rolling back democratic reforms” in Russia; the endless fake outrage at Russian actions in Chechnya - lie the real reasons for the renewed vigour in the campaign to demonise Russia.

What has Putin done to draw fire from assorted mouthpieces of Western governments and various hacks in the Western media? The reason for their ire is that he has established an effective and solid resistance to the rape and pillage of Russia by the globalised forces of unfettered greed. Putin has come to the conclusion that the powers that be in the West, in other words, the trans-national corporations and their ultimate owners, don’t just want access to Russian oil, nor do they want control of Russian oil, they want total control of every aspect of the Russian economy. For them, nothing short of total economic submission will do.

Putin is guilty of the ultimate sin, that of economic nationalism. The sin is that of putting the needs of your country before those of international capital. It is the real reason why Salvador Allende was ousted and replaced with the despot Pinochet. It is the true motive for the ousting of Saddam Hussein. It is the reason why Hugo Chavez is dishonestly depicted as a tyrant. It will be the actual rationale for any future war against Iran, despite claims to the contrary. In the case of Russia and the Putin administration, this 'sin' has manifested itself in number of ways, each of which is discussed in detail below.

Control of NGOs
On April 17th of this year, a law passed by the Russian Parliament, the Duma, took effect. This law, vociferously denounced as ‘controversial’ and ‘retrogressive’ by the media in the West, imposes restrictions on domestic and foreign nongovernmental organizations operating in Russia. The law puts in place strict registration requirements and imposes rigorous financial oversight on the operations of NGOs. The law also provides for the dissolution of an NGO if its activities "threaten Russia's independence or sovereignty".

The motive for this legislation is not to deny freedom of speech or to attempt undermine the rights of citizens, but to protect Russia from the insidious activities of certain foreign-funded NGOs that are established to do precisely three things:

• undermine the governments of sovereign nations and in doing so subjugate their economies
• promote the bland, insipid and ultimately impotent brand of western democracy
• press for the market liberalisation that is in reality little more than legalised plundering and wholesale racketeering

Vladimir Putin seeks to prevent a repeat of the "colour" revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, where anti-ultra-nationalist xenophobes were funded by NGOs set up by the likes of the US National Endowment for Democracy, ostensibly to free the countries from their Soviet past and to establish them as independent democracies. The reality of these pseudo-revolutions is somewhat different, however. Their purpose was solely to move the countries out of the sphere of influence of Russia and into that of the United States. Democracy - or at least the concept of democracy unadulterated with corporatist fundamentalism, electoral fraud and the threat of tyranny - played no part in the proceedings.

In the most ironic of all ironies, the most vituperative disapproval of this move to curtail the activities of foreign NGOs came from the United States, a country that had previously put in place two versions of the freedom-busting "Patriot Act". Piling insult on top of injury, the political class and media in the United States remain fierce critics of Russia and her apparent lack of freedoms, despite having descended into a deeper dystopic state following recent the signing into law of the Military Commissions Act.

Dollar Independence
On May 10th of this year, Vladimir Putin, in his State of the Nation speech to the Russian Duma (Parliament), announced that Russia would make the rouble a convertible currency, in order that it could be used for payment in oil and natural gas transactions. At the present time, oil sales are exclusively transacted in dollars and are made solely through the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMX) and the London Petroleum Exchange (LPE), both of which are owned by American investors.

Any move away from the denomination of oil in dollars will severely impact on the demand for the greenback on the global market and would result in billions of dollars flooding back into the United States, causing at the very least a severe economic slump and potentially resulting in total economic meltdown.

Like Saddam Hussein before him, the real threat Vladimir Putin poses to the United States is his desire to free his country and the sale of its resources from the shackles of the US fiat currency. In November 2000, Saddam Hussein had started selling oil in euros, thus threatening the absolute hegemony of the dollar. Up to this point, oil had never been transacted in euros - as Britain and Norway, two major oil producers, one of which is a member of the EU and the other a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) decided to retain their own currencies and to continue denominating the sales of their oil in dollars. The result of the insolence of Saddam Hussein in threatening the hegemony of the almighty dollar was illegal invasion of Iraq. The pretext for the invasion was a lie - a smokescreen. The impending destruction of Iraq would have nothing whatsoever to do with the dictatorial nature of the Hussein regime, or his attacks on the Kurds. The true motive for the invasion was solely because he threatened US supremacy and the domination of its currency.

Similarly, the real reason for the posturing on Iran has nothing to do with alleged plans on the part of the Iranians to develop nuclear weapons. It is because the Iranians have announced plans to establish an Iranian Oil Bourse (Market) transacting oil in Euros. The exchange would be based on Kish Island in the Persian Gulf, an Iranian duty-free and tax-free zone. The launch date for the bourse has been delayed, and when and if it does go into operation it will have to overcome the major obstacle that the current amount of euro currency in circulation is insufficient. However, any moves away from the use of the dollar, however putative, can be considered a threat to the long-term viability of the greenback. Those who dismiss such suggestions as conspiracy theory may like to explain why the privately-owned U.S. Federal Reserve has cancelled the publishing of the M3 monetary aggregate, a report that details the extent dollar holdings globally.

If President Putin continues with his plans to establish the rouble as a convertible currency and to transact all sales of Russian oil in the rouble, then expect the demonisation of Russia in general and Putin in particular to increase dramatically.

Conflict with Georgia
Georgian President, Mikail Saakashvili is frequently painted as being a nationalist, but as always the reality of his presidency bears little relationship to the propaganda. Although he has fought hard to have Russian bases removed from Georgian soil, he has quickly replaced them with those of another foreign power - The United States. Since the downfall of the Soviet Union, the United States and her allies have been busy cultivating lackies and establishing bases in the former Soviet states bordering Russia.

For the authorities in Moscow, the Caucasus region and other former satellite states are their geopolitical backyard and therefore critical to their national security. The United States has bases in 130 of 160 countries in the world, and Russia has every right to be concerned about the presence of forces from an increasingly hostile nation on their borders - and have rightly used this incursion into the region as a reason to renew investment in their military.

The publicly stated rationale for Western support for Georgia in their conflict with Russia is that Saakashvili is committed to democracy and that Putin is somehow the contrary. This is undiluted nonsense.

A report by OSCE Watch concluded that the March 2004 poll effectively produced a one party state in Georgia with a small nominal and utterly ineffective opposition. Since that time, Saakashvili has busied himself with appointing close relatives to important governmental posts and despite having stated that “it was unacceptable for the Georgian president to have an inflated staff or a luxurious residence” he is now constructing a veritable palace for himself on the outskirts of Tbilisi - having demolished the police headquarters and a considerable number of neighbouring dwellings. This palace is reported by the British Helsinki Human Rights Group to be larger in scale than the White House in Washington. It is amazing that such a small country could afford such a disproportionate display of wealth and status. Despite its new status as a ‘democratic nation’ Georgia continues to be mired by outright corruption, cronyism, political racketeering and murder. Life for ordinary Georgians has not improved one iota since the colour revolution, and in many respects has worsened considerably.

A scale model of the new palace
(Photo by the British Helsinki Human Rights Group)

The fascist and totalitarian credentials of Saakashvili are close to impeccable. Constitutional amendments that were hastily pushed through parliament in February 2004, shortly after Saakashvili took power, effectively confer unlimited powers on the president. Also, in a move redolent of similar events in Nazi Germany, Saakashvili decreed that the symbol of the National Movement would become the new flag of Georgia, effectively making the symbols of the state and the party one and the same.

From the behaviour of the victor of the Rose Revolution, it is apparent that Georgia is not a democratic state, at least not by any commonly accepted definition of the word. Georgia has become a mini-dictatorship in all but name, a regime tied to and governed by the interests of the United States. Given the deep-seated connections between Saakashvili and the United States administration, the recent arrest of four Russian officials in Georgia can only be seen as deliberate action designed to provoke Russia - so that the Russian rejoinder can be dissected, analysed, criticised and demonised in the Western media.

Support for Byelorussia
Like Georgia, Byelorussia is a state sharing a border with Russia. Unlike Georgia, Byelorussia is an ally to Russia, and that - along with a shared history- is the primary reason for the close relationship between the two countries. The relationship does not imply Russian approval of the methods Lukashenko uses to remain in power, but is simply an attempt by Russia to ensure that Byelorussia does not become the 131st country in the world to host U.S. military bases.

Like Russia, Byelorussia has curtailed the activities of foreign NGOs and probably for much the same reasons. While there is an undoubted need for reform in Byelorussia, if the NGOs have their way, the reforms will be similar to those imposed on Georgia and Ukraine, and will not have the effect of improving the quality of life of Byelorussian citizens or making their government more accountable.

Any guesses as to who is sponsoring this putative "revolution"?
(photo by the British Helsinki Human Rights Group)

Alexander Lukashenko does have (as he said himself) "an authoritarian ruling style" and there is cause for concern about human rights violations and the actions of the state against independent journalists, national minorities and opposition politicians. However the true extent of such violations - when compared against those of "friendly" authoritarian regimes, such as the new Georgian administration- are exaggerated by the usual interested parties.

Ironically, Byelorusssia has been criticised by various U.S. funded NGO's for retaining the death penalty for certain crimes, despite the fact that the biggest culprit in the terminal dispatch of criminals is the chief cheerleader in anti-Lukashenko lobby. Also, in another supreme irony, in a testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice labelled Belarus, along with five other nations, as one of the United State's list of "outposts of tyranny".

The dismantling of oligarchy
Putin, much to the annoyance of the global kleptocracy, has started making moves to bring oil and gas production back under Russian control. The moves against Khodorkovsky, the ousting of Royal Dutch Shell from the Sakhalin II gas fields on the grounds of their failure to meet environmental regulations and the creation of the super corporation Gazpromneft have all contributed to the process of wrestling back control of resources that were literally given away to foreign companies and investors by the Yeltsin government. Of course, some in Russia, such as the newspaper Газета (Gazeta), will paint this as "a rather peculiar system of power where the nation’s key economic assets are run on behalf of the state by a group of close associates", but remained strangely silent while a small group of ultra-wealthy foreigners looted what they could of Russia's natural resources.

Military resurgence and Security Co-operation
The Russian army, navy and air-force are showing signs of recovering from their former dilapidated state. Despite years of economic problems, Russia has remained very much at the forefront of military technology and Vladimir Putin has made it clear in May 2003 through his annual State Of The Nation address that he would strengthen and modernise the Russian nuclear arsenal in order to “ensure the defence and capability of Russia and its allies in the long term”.

Through the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, Russia has been working together with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to bolster their collective defensive capability. On a broader front, Russia participates in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, whose members held war-games in Kazakhstan in August 2006. Russia has also signed a comprehensive military cooperation agreement with India, again in August of this year.

Conclusion
Without doubt, the rationale for the upsurge in anti-Russian propaganda in the Western media is triggered by the re-emergence of Russia as a global power and the decision of the Russian administration to put the strategic interests of Russia ahead of those of the United States. Indeed, the U.S. Council for Foreign Relations is urging George Bush to “stop regarding Russia as a strategic partner” because “Russia has become an increasingly authoritarian state with a foreign policy that is sometimes at odds with the interests of the United States and its allies”. It is true that the Russian administration is acting against the interests of the United States. After all, it is doing what any government should do… it should act in the interests of its own people. If clamping down on the Trojan Horses that are the western-funded NGOs is authoritarian, then I guess Russia is also authoritarian.

So, for once, it appears that the Council for Foreign Relations, a neocon think-tank that laughably describes itself as a “Nonpartisan Resource for Information and Analysis” has got something right.

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An apple a day... the faulty rhetoric of Yabloko and the faux outrage of the 'international community'

During a recent visit to Germany, blame for the murder of the Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, was laid at the feet of Vladimir Putin by a crowd of 2000 protesters, one of whom shouted "murderer!" as Mr Putin got out of his limousine.

Later Mr Putin publicly acknowledged her death for the first time during a joint press conference with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. During the press conference, he stated that although Ms Politkovskaya was a journalist known to be critical of the authorities in Russia, her influence on political life in Russia was insubstantial. He also promised that the murder, which he described as a "dreadful and unacceptable crime" will be fully investigated and the perpetrators apprehended. During talks with Mr Putin, Angela Merkin is reported to have raised the concerns of the mythical 'international community' with regard to the possibility of state involvement in the murder.

The murder of Ms. Politkovskaya is without doubt a cause for concern, as would be any suggestion of state intimidation of the media. However, the assumption that the murder was carried out on the orders of Mr Putin is either the product of simplistic thinking or ulterior motives. As with any significant event of this type, the first question any sane person should ask is 'cui bono'?

Who benefits? Certainly not Vladimir Putin, who is - without any real evidence - being accused of using murder to suppress media freedoms. If the Russian state had wanted to do away with a vocal opponent, their demise would have been made to look like an accident. Whoever perpetrated this murder wanted it to be clearly seen as an execution - in order to once more make the Putin administration the focus of the faux righteous indignation and moral outrage so beloved of those who regularly instigate or perpetrate atrocities all over the world. Those who benefit from this murder are those who want to demonise and punish the current Russian administration for their strident economic nationalism and for their attempts to review the flawed privatisations of the Yeltsin era.

When asked for comment about the murder, Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the opposition Yabloko party stated that "Russia is becoming an authoritarian and corrupt country". The reality is that Russia is less corrupt now than it was when Yeltsin was busy selling off the Russian family silver to a small number of ultra-greedy oligarchs.

He went on to say that "This killing opens a new phase when the physical elimination of political opponents becomes possible". He has obviously had his eyes closed while the oligarchs and other assorted criminals were busy ordering hits on each other in their drive to establish exclusive control over the natural resources that rightly belong to all of the Russian people.

While I do not for one minute believe that the administration of Vladimir Putin is blameless or free from mistakes, I am sickened by the hypocritical critique of those who point fingers at Russia for their actions in Chechnya while simultaneously committing far greater atrocities in the Middle East, or at least tacitly supporting them.

I also find it ironic that the leader of a party that espouses the kind of liberal economic policies that allowed Yeltsin to divest the Russian state of its natural resources and large industries has the audacity to bemoan the increasing corruption in the country. Mr Yavlinsky believes that these fundamentally corrupt privatisations should be deemed legal and should not be open to administrative review. It is clear from this that Mr Yavlinsky does not represent the interests of the Russian populace at large, but is far more interested in protecting the ill-gotten assets of a small clique of kleptocrats.

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