Pajamas Media

29 Comments

1. Ilshat Alsayef:

Why is everyone acting so surprised that Putin’s Russia continues policies of the Soviet Union? It is run by a KGB thug who ‘described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century.’ And with American President who’d rather avoid raising issue of political prisoners because he doesn’t want to offend the Russians by telling them how to run their country, the future is looking bleak.

Jul 21, 2009 - 3:07 am 2. Adina Kutnicki,Israel:

Putin is a devil and a serial murderer, yet Obama came to Russia and prostrated the US before her.
While the KGB is surely up to big doings,(both in aiding Iran and in their own sphere) the west should be more concerned with what Obama and his henchmen are up to, continually misreading ALL the signs from lethal dictators all over the world.
This is the case despite the fact that he surrounds himself with more IVY league degree types than any other administration.
Need I say more?

Jul 21, 2009 - 3:32 am 3. Rashputin:

Just like our own cute Fievel the Mouse in Chief, Putin wants a free press. Rather than mess around with an equal time provision, though, he’s taking care of it in the same old way. After all, he didn’t get the benefit of an education as a lawyer to help him do the same thing by other means. You should feel sorry for the guy rather than saying harsh things about him. Poor man doesn’t have complete control of his government anyway; there are opposition members that keep him from having a majority all the time.

Besides, “never ascribe to conspiracy what can be explained by simple stupidity”.

Regards

Jul 21, 2009 - 5:00 am 4. "progressive"watch:

The KGB under Putin had blood on its hands from all over the world. He is still the same old red-handed red. The sensible thing with the KGB is to believe all the horror stories.

Jul 21, 2009 - 6:29 am 5. scythe:

I love the last sentence. The Soviet Union never “collapsed”. We who have been studying their chess game for years understood it remained the same under a different shell. Ask yourself this: how could a country which operated a certain way for decades suddenly change everything about itself which characterized it? It never made sense. This is a classic case of culture matters which is why we are being Marxified in the USA using Antonio Gramsci cultural war strategies. Soviet Russie changed its clothing to fool the outside world including we gullible Americans. They study and understand human nature to a frightening degree and understood that if we thought we were so powerful we could even bring them to their knees, that would feed into our pride in ourselves and in our country, fool us, and they went along with the gag. So they had to outwardly look as if they were weak and could not sustain the system. But the gains!!! Imagine being able to look one way and be quite something else for a long time. Imagine what you could get away with. Start with convincing investors to pour billions into your country and end by stealing it all from the unsuspecting. We have a saying that should be understood by all if we are to survive these masters of duplicity: The Soviets play chess; Americans play checkers. The wonder of it all is that it has taken years since “the fall” of the Soviet Union for anyone to supect that “fall” was just another strategy.

Jul 21, 2009 - 7:13 am 6. AThinkingPerson:

From the article:”Russia is allying with virtually every anti-American country on the planet and assassinating its critics.”

From #2. Adina Kutnicki,Israel: “Putin is a devil and a serial murderer, yet Obama came to Russia and prostrated the US before her.”

Anyone else see something very alarming in these two statements when read together? I’m no longer easily convinced that Obama is merely an unskilled politician fumbling the ball at every turn. With his insistence on ruining the US economy and socializing medicine, it seems somehow more sinister.

Oh to be an empty-headed liberal at times like these and be oblivious to all of the bad news.

Jul 21, 2009 - 8:03 am 7. Realist:

They are SOCIALISTS and thats what SOCIALISTS do why do you have to ask?

Jul 21, 2009 - 8:27 am 8. Thomas L......:

So … what’s new, eh?

Jul 21, 2009 - 9:11 am 9. dan:

Yuri Bezmenov….

“and they will make loooots of promises, never mind that they cannot keep them, and they will put a Big Brother government in Washington D.C., never mind… and they will go to Moscow to kiss the fat bottoms of a new generation of Soviet assassins in the Kremlin…”

I wonder how people can take the word of the MSM or the conventional wisdom of the era when we have so many examples of people making very specific predictions of what is in fact actually coming true – are people aware of the fact that this almost *never* actually happens? And you know what? It never will: this kind of accuracy comes because people *know what they are talking about,* not because they are clairavoyant or have an extremely sensitive intuition. It’s based on Knowledge.

I’m sorry, I go with Bezmenov and Golitsyn on the question of the nature of the USSR v 2.0. All these rest of you are wrong, wrong, wrong, and something terrible is probaly coming. Did you see the video of the Iranian people spontaneously shouting at Friday prayers not “Death to Amerika!” but “Death to Russia!” Death to Russia? What sense does that even make in the context of the MSM?

Wake up! If it wasn’t for Russia, we would probably not even *have* any enemies.

Jul 21, 2009 - 10:51 am 10. dan:

By the way, Zawahiri could easily have been known to the KGB since Sadat formalized Nassir’s expulsion of Soviet arms and advisers – as Sadat accomplished by making his bargain with Israel and the USA. Sadat was assassinated by Al Jihad in 1981. Who ran al Jihad? Ayman al Zawahiri. Gee, think maybe the Soviet Union/KGB would find the existence of al Jihad useful since obviously – as has been more than borne out over the past 3 billion years – everyone believes that if you wear one colored jersey you can’t ever, ever, ever cooperate with a guy wearing a different colored jersey?

You fools. The Soviet Union has been coopting and ruling Muslims since its first year of existence. They provided Nassir with his ability to be “Nassir” since at least 1954. Obviously the KGB at least *knew* of al Zawahiri since probably before he led al Jihad, and they certainly knew who he was after the Sadat assassination.

Of course they trained Zawahiri. Does everyone really still believe a bunch of Arab trustfundbabies and cave-dwelling heroin salesmen are causing all this? Guys! C’mon!

Jul 21, 2009 - 11:07 am 11. Crusader:

Same old hammer/sickle, never changed. Biggest blunder of Bush’s presidency was “I looked into Putin’s eyes and I saw his soul”. Soul of a demon that is.

Jul 21, 2009 - 2:44 pm 12. David W. Lincoln:

Take a look at the novel, “Vatican” by Malachi Martin. Especially the pages devoted to P1& P2.

When you have elements of the “Western Establishment” willing to use the Baader-Meinhof gang, the Red Brigades, and escaped Nazi’s to further their plans, why wouldn’t the KGB?

For, what is fiction, other than re-written history?

Jul 21, 2009 - 2:45 pm 13. Leatherneck:

Maybe, the Russians are the IED sourse for the enemy in Afganistan. We did it to them when they invaded Afganistan, except it was with rockets to blow up their Helicopters.

Tit, for tat?

Jul 21, 2009 - 3:20 pm 14. Rashputin:

Leatherneck (13)

Excellent point, they have very long memories and they not only remember their war in Afghanistan, they remember Clinton chiding them over fighting muslim radicals who were blowing up their citizens and demanding their own Islamic state. That they waited several years before going in and flattening everything surprised me. They will cause us problems at least as long as we ignored little things like Belsin, the Moscow Opera, and other “peaceful muslim” activities. I expect tit for tat in Afghanistan, that’s for sure, and until someone acknowledges that just because someone within Russia is a muslim doesn’t make them a blameless freedom fighter.

I like the line at the top of the article, “… getting close to something big”. We have a president who can’t prove he is eligible to serve, 30 Czars accountable to no one other than Fievel himself, and the Congress just bought their labor pals their own little car company after violating long standing bankruptcy laws. I think the author might consider just how big something in Russia has to be to over shadow what is happening here.

Besides, there are a LOT of groups in Russia killing people who just tick them off other than the government and Putin. I suppose it’s tougher to look into murders there and blame in on their violent mob because if they’re ticked off, they’ll come here and shut you up without caring what their government or ours thinks about anything. It’s much safer to blame Putin, whether he’s a choirboy or not, I haven’t read the kind of proof I’d expect for something like this. It’s always just a hit piece on Putin and how evil he and the KGB have been through history. He didn’t reach the top of the heap in a polite debating society; he reached the top of the heap in Russia. I think his main “crime” is that he doesn’t give a damn about what European or American liberal leftists think of him and isn’t afraid to say so.

Regards

Jul 21, 2009 - 4:13 pm 15. Pappione:

At their journalist have the guts to go after the “truth” despite the dangers. Our journalists have long given up any meaningful investigations that could help expose the bull that we are going through the past several decades!

Jul 21, 2009 - 4:21 pm 16. fear obama:

I never suggest watching a particular movie,
but if by chance you should take a look at Charlie Wilson’s War.

Russian weapons killed many of us in Vietnam we paid them back with 10,000 deaths and 6 times wounded in Afghanistan.

I would not put it past Putin to have been aware of the 9/11 attacks.

Bush always said he was evil.

Jul 21, 2009 - 4:45 pm 17. fear obama:

Old News

Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, was criticized a month ago when he kissed a young boy’s belly, later explaining he felt an urge to

“squeeze him like a kitten.”

Never know,
He might have a few of these in his basement.

one crazy Shiite

Jul 21, 2009 - 5:06 pm 18. myth buster:

I suspect Vladimir Putin may be Gog of Magog. If he is, then he’s on a collision course with the Almighty. Bad stuff’s gonna go down either way.

Jul 21, 2009 - 7:01 pm 19. WhyamInotsurprised?:

Even while the killing goes on, I have to think about the literal hell on earth Putin endures of having to constantly look over his own shoulders wondering when his time will come. His kind of power comes with a big price. And then there is the comeuppance to be had in the hereafter! Not a pretty picture. Nothing to have been learned from Stalin except emulation. Says a lot about the soviet mind. And all people can credit them with is their ability to play chess. ha!

Jul 21, 2009 - 8:36 pm 20. Sallie:

God of Magog, interesting , never really thought about it…

Hashemite Kingdom Theory, Russian or European theory…it doesn’t matter. Putin is the ideal candidate, without getting into a theological debate, it seems all cards are falling into place..wow…

Jul 21, 2009 - 9:13 pm 21. lefroy:

Why did anyone really expect much more from Putin? A “pure product of soviet education”, as he has described himself with ingratiating and entirely bogus self-deprecation, he was sucked into the KGB as a teenager and it has entirely shaped his moral view. Witnss the fact that his model of the selfless, uncorrupt public servant – he has stated this often and publicly – is Yuri Andropov, a brutal and (as the Mitrokhin papers have revealed) paranoid thug and murderer. He has promoted and cosseted his former security service colleagues, and restored the FSB to something like the privileged lawless position of its predecessor. He said openly at the time of his accession to the presidency that Russia would not be suitable for liberal democracy for a century and probably never.

Putin’s geostrategic aims don’t go much beyond a truly devilish wish to thwart the USA at every turn, and to restore, opportunistically as the occasions present themselves, the Soviet sphere of influence. This is the legacy of the secret policeman when the last pretensions to a noble ideology are shattered.

In pursuit of the former goal, he will do anything he can get away with, and make any secret pact that he can.

He is truly a vile little bastard, and ought not to be trusted an inch.

Jul 22, 2009 - 12:01 am 22. Peter Montbriand:

The USSR(russia) funded terrorists throughout the cold war, we all know that. It doesn’t take alot of money to get big results. What makes us think the SOBs have changed their spots on “bang for the buck” foreign policy since ‘91?
When it comes to Russian involvement in this stuff, I’m willing to keep an open mind, to say the least. As an unreconstructed cold warrior(albeit a young one), I can’t trust the Russians.

Jul 22, 2009 - 1:39 am 23. ajacksonian:

Say did anyone ever clear up the Stephen Curtis killing in connection with the Bank of New York penetration and international money laundering that went on? Or the BoNY penetration, itself, which was accorded a place higher than BCCI by one of the federal investigators on the case? How about Putin’s Red Mafia connections? Or the connection to Oil For Food? You would think there might be some connections there…

Of course this points to a deep relationship between the criminal establishment and the Russian government, but that has been the case since the early 1990’s when the Red Mafia used its influence to become a major player in the economy in Russia and gain favorable legislation to cover operations… they aren’t exactly the same type of Mafia we know, as they also run steel and aluminum concerns, natural gas and oil concerns, and generally have a conduit into the currency systems of the planet. Plus they do all the other Mafia style business, too. Its all just business. When people are assassinated in regards to Russia its not a question of ‘if’ it was done by those in power, but which group they used to do the hit. They do have their choices amongst their friends.

Jul 22, 2009 - 4:28 am 24. David W. Lincoln:

Claudia Rosett did yeoman’s work about Oil for food. For that, I suspect, it was made clear to her that the Wall Street Journal encouraged her to branch out.

Jul 22, 2009 - 9:21 am 25. H. Coburn:

Personaly, I don’t see all that much difference between Putin, and Obama, except that Putin is a natural born Russian citizen, and doesn’t have a constitution to destroy before implementing his fascist dictates.
Peas in a pod in my book. Thank you.

Jul 22, 2009 - 4:17 pm 26. Thomas:

What do you think (put aside your emotional bias):
who is more patriotic and protective and proud of his nation, its culture, heritage, religion, its traditions and people?

Obama or Putin? – No spin please!

Who is more more commendable as statesman:
Putin, one who kicks out from the country the foreign paid subversive groups like Soros’ the Saudi and EU financed Amnesty I. the array of dubious NGO-s with obscure agendas like Code Pink, Sexual propagandist, anti-Russian newsmen, etc.

or Obama, the one who has a private, ethnicity based army to influence elections, whose supporters are string pulling, obscure billionaires intending to convert America to Marxist, Multiculturalist, PC dictatorship?

Which country will sink into anarchy an chaos first the USA or Russia?

Jul 22, 2009 - 6:42 pm 27. WhyamInotsurprised?:

Still true today. The only good Commie is a dead Commie.

Jul 23, 2009 - 7:59 am 28. Kabud:

another interesting one by J. R. Nyquist

Acknowledging the Deception
by J. R. Nyquist
Weekly Column Published: 07.24.2009

Meet Victor Kalashnikov: former KGB officer, scholar, analyst, and writer. He is married to historian and journalist Marina Kalashnikova, the subject of last week’s column. Before the Soviet Union collapsed Victor worked for the KGB in Vienna. After Gorbachev’s bizarre abdication in December 1991, Victor found himself drawn into the Presidential administration of Boris Yeltsin on orders of KGB General Yevgeny Primakov. There he became a research director in the Russian Public Policy Center. “So I turned my attention 180 degrees from Europe to Russia,” Victor explained. “I was quite enthusiastic to explore what was going on in Russia. The people in the Kremlin came across a lot of surprises and discoveries as to what Russia really was.”

And what is Russia?

With help from presidential advisor Sergei Stankevich, Victor managed to retire from the KGB. But the KGB wanted him back, just as they wanted Russia back. Whatever job Victor took, wherever he went, the KGB would appear. “They always arrived on the scene with offers and promises, wanting to exploit my contacts,” Victor explained. You see, the Cold War was still ongoing, and so was the work of Moscow’s spies. In 1997 the SVR (KGB) wanted Victor to bring spies into the German oil company he worked for. When he refused, the SVR promised he would “pay with his blood.” In 1999, after having coffee at the Russian Embassy in Brussels, Victor became very sick. Quite naturally, he suspected poison.

In 2000, one of Victor’s colleagues had been summoned by the secret police and told that the Kalashnikovs were on a “black list” due to their politically incorrect writings. People were being warned on all sides, including their dentist. Friends melted away. Co-workers avoided contact. Dental work could not be done. “What struck me, especially with the younger generation,” Victor noted, “is that they appear to be such conformists. No idealism, no values. They were just ready to cooperate with whomever they saw as their superiors. That’s why ultimately, nowadays, we unexpectedly found ourselves in the position of outsiders, dissidents, even enemies. That’s the way it developed.”

In 2004 Victor and his wife continued their controversial writing activities and found themselves accosted on the street by FSB (KGB) officers who warned them against entering foreign embassies and disrupted their attempts to meet with diplomats. At about this time the Kalashnikovs were fired from their newspaper jobs. From that point forward, Victor and Marina could not find work in the Russian media, academia or business. Eventually, they sought an outlet for their talents in Ukraine. But here again, the Kremlin gave them no rest, as Ukrainian officials warned that the Russian Interior Minister had included the Kalashnikovs on a list of “extremists” and that, as a consequence, their personal safety in Ukraine could not be guaranteed.

“Conformism is absolutely overwhelming here,” Kalashnikov lamented. “You should not distinguish between the Russian authorities and the Russian people. From the unemployed in the provinces, to the top of the hierarchy, conformism is huge. Also within the media, they are all willing to cooperate. It is a reality and it will develop that way, despite today’s economic troubles. It is a typically Russian phenomenon.”

If it sounds like Soviet times, you are not mistaken. The totalitarian system has now become more sophisticated and more streamlined. The West should not deceive itself. The Cold War never ended. The KGB remains in place. According to Kalashnikov, “It is not necessary to control the entire former Soviet area. We can project our influence. Even when we allow the Americans and NATO to have a presence there, we have the upper hand. I even suspect that what happened has produced a modernized strategic model.”

Gone are the imperial burdens. Russia can use its secret agent networks to blackmail executives, politicians and intellectuals. Journalists can be bought inexpensively, as it turns out. The disinformation campaigns of the 60s, 70s and 80s have laid the groundwork for a great deception. The West thinks they are dealing with a new entity in Russia. Yet they are still dealing with the house that Stalin built.

“My feeling is that the old personnel management system has been reinstalled from Soviet times,” said Kalashnikov, explaining how the secret police can deprive uncooperative citizens of a livelihood. “In the Soviet Union your personnel file followed you whenever you changed from one job to another. Your employer sees any black marks set down by previous employers, and my former employer [the KGB] was eager to make life as difficult as possible. They wanted to press us to the degree that we would admit our defeat and failure, reconsidering our behavior.”

In the West we were told that the Soviet system was finished. We were told that the Communist Party lost power, the KGB was reformed and democracy won the day.

Kalashnikov said: “There was not any moment, I can state with certainty, that the old system of KGB and nomenklatura admitted their failure or lost control. They just changed their form and appearance. It was a sort of generational change. Instead of generals in charge, we have lieutenant colonels. They behaved differently, but they are doing the same thing. There has never been any moment when they admitted historical defeat. There never was any serious step toward de-communization – never, never. The Yakovlev Commission was conceived to imitate de-communization procedures in Central Europe.”

So it was a sham?

“Yes, it was a fake, an imitation,” Kalashnikov insisted. “From the very beginning the idea was, we’ll get back, we’ll modernize. And that’s how it happened. Of course, many Western observers were happy about the new faces and new styles and openness. But step by step, you yourself may remember that many American institutions here in Russia have been pushed out or brought under Russian control. So, formally, we have several Western bodies here allegedly doing democracy and consulting work, but in fact they have become an instrument of Kremlin policy to imitate and exploit for their own purposes.”

Here are the words of a former KGB official, telling the truth from his home in Moscow, barred from employment for his honesty – blacklisted by his former colleagues because he did not want to participate in the greatest deception of our time. “There was no real accountability for the past,” Kalashnikov explained. “It was a big deception. People changed their appearance and behavior, but the real meaning of the system remained the same – in substance. It was quite visible to me. The West was just happy that we let go of the names of Communism and Soviet and so on. We changed our vocabulary. Instead of Politburo and Central Committee we have a president and a presidential administration. Instead of KGB, we have FSB. I insist that the interpretation of late Soviet history should be changed profoundly. The KGB maintained huge networks of domestic spies. Hundreds of thousands of people were deployed at the right time, influencing the democracy movement. That system has been extended by Putin. If you look at Russia from the outside you cannot discern who is manipulating the whole thing. Hundreds of thousands of assets are employed in politics and business. There is a hidden agenda and hidden structures. Even the Germans have not gotten rid of their hidden structures having to do with the Communist era. With all the German efforts and technology they still cannot solve the problem of hidden Communist structures. They are still being manipulated. Now take Russia, which was free to reconstruct its [totalitarian] structures under a different guise.”

And what are the strategic implications?

“They would be huge,” said Kalashnikov. “You know, one thing people should understand. There is a definite line of continuity in Moscow’s military policies from Stalin’s time. Moscow has consistently followed the same line of policy. What is misleading for many people is that the material military presence is not there anymore. We don’t need so many tanks. The question is what sort of design, what sort of strategy you have in place. All of that Moscow has in terms of potentials. We see that the Russian presence is being reinstalled in some places – Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.” The important thing is manipulation and influence instead of direct control.

In terms of modern strategy Russia’s reduced size brings advantages. Now Russia is not responsible for feeding Azerbaijan or providing cheap energy to the Baltic States or Ukraine. The KGB’s weapons of influence and manipulation, including organized crime and drug trafficking, can be used to influence and manipulate without maintaining expensive armies. And so, the Russians have learned how to streamline their dominance. Make the Americans think that Washington has the upper hand. But look around today and see what is happening to the American economy, to the U.S. dollar, and to the U.S. nuclear deterrent. There is a visible weakening in all three areas.

Victor Kalashnikov is a brave man. He has refused to falsify reality for the sake of career opportunity or even personal safety. He is telling us the way things are the largest country in the world. You can ignore him if you like, but ignore him at your own peril.

Jul 24, 2009 - 10:50 am 29. Icelandir:

Well, what is it that the Russians actually want. World domination? To blow America off the map? I just don’t understand what the power struggle actually is???

Oct 28, 2009 - 1:38 pm

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