Very telling video (especially for Islam-haters!)

I recently learned this lesson the hard way, so let me begin with a few caveats: I don't know where this footage was taken, I don't know when it was taken, and I don't know by whom it was taken.  It is identified on YouTube as "Interview with Chechens in Donetsk".  Except for the only flag I see on the video seems to be a South Ossetian one.  And since both the Chechen and Ossetian languages are very different from Russian, I don't understand a word of what they say.  All I did see is the words "Vostok Battalion" on one of the vans written in Russian.  Now, after all these caveats,  here is what I want you all to see:

Look carefully at the woman in red at the corner of the street who is watching as each APC passes her.  Do can you see what she is doing?

She is blessing each APC with an Orthodox blessing even though she probably knows that these are mostly Muslims.



So here you have it my Islam-haters and defenders of "Christendom" against the "Islamic threat": a Russian Orthodox woman is blessing Muslim men (Chechens are Muslims and while Ossetians can be Muslim or Orthodox, but the men on the video look Muslim to be, at least judging by their beards).  Muslim men who have left their faraway country to cross Russia to defend Orthodox Russians outside Russia.  When was the last time that the so-called "Christendom" came to the defense of Russia, the Russian people or the Orthodox anywhere??  

I take no joy in that, believe me, but the historical record is clear: sadly, what is was call "Christendom" in the past (and by some today) or what is called the "West" or even the "Judeo-Christian civilization" (??) has always been against Russia and against Orthodoxy, even though even today they still deny this vehemently.

Sure, Russia did have wars against Muslim states, but with the exception of the Ottomans, these were not religious wars.  It is also true that Russia did engage in imperialistic expansion towards the south, especially in the Caucasus and Central Asia (there were no Chechen or Tadjik invasions of Russia to repel - Russia invaded them).

And, of course, there was the abomination of the two Chechen wars recently for which, I sincerely believe, both nations share the blame, responsibility and even shame.  And yet today, Chechens (including, I am sure, many former insurgents) are fighting in Novorussia.  Why?  Because on a deep level we - Russians and Muslims in or near Russia - belong to the same "civilizational realm".  Just like Central Asia or the huge Siberian expanses, the Caucasus is part of a multi-national and multi-ethnic civilization which history has forged, sometimes in peace, sometimes through wars, but which was a reality in the Russian Empire, during the Soviet Union and which today is slowly re-constituting a "Eurasian Union".  This Eurasian Union will always have a strong Islamic component to it and the Wahabis are wasting their time and money when they try to bring the local Muslims under their influence and make them agents for the AngloZionists (like they are trying today with the Crimean Tatars).  They will always get some initial results, but they are bound to fail because you cannot roll-back or ignore history.

In a paradoxical way, the AngloZionist aggression against Russia (and China on the other side of the Eurasian landmass) seems to be creating a "reactive consolidation" of the Eurasian Union.  If not for the (US sponsored) wars in Chechnia and in South Ossetia, would we ever have seen this woman blessing Muslim soldiers going to the front?  I doubt it.

One more thing: poor Ukie death squads.  I can just about imagine their horror when they will realize that instead of defenseless civilians, they are facing battle-hardened Chechen and Ossetian warriors.  Man, I wish these guys would capture Liashko, just to see how he would behave in their company...

Kind regards to all,

The Saker

PS: I think that my PayPal button issue has been fixed thanks to your help.  Can you confirm?

The latest bombing and a personal note

Dear friends,

The putatively 'Chechen' terrorists have detonated two more bombs in Russia, this time in Dagestan. In think that the trend here is clear - 'Chechen' terrorism is on the rise again, striking at strategic Russian targets (such as the Moscow-Petersburg train or the Moscow subway). The curious thing is that this is all happening while in Chechnia proper there is comparatively very little insurgent activity. I would like to offer you a hypothesis, a 'version of events', which makes sense to me but for which I have no proof whatsoever. I already mentioned it several times in the comments section, but I would like to submit it to you all for consideration:

The recent upsurge in 'Chechen' terrorism might have little or nothing to do with Chechnia. Yes, the executors of these operations are probably ethnic Chechens and they are probably acting under the orders of Doku Umarov, the modestly self-styled 'First Emir of the Caucasus Emirate". But so what? How does that explain anything?

Osama bin-Laden was a CIA agent for most of his life (he is probably dead by now) and there is overwhelming evidence that the entire Chechen insurgency was CIA supported via what came to be known as al-Qaeda. It is also quite clear that the British secret services have been working hand in hand with Boris Berezovsky and, therefore, with his Chechen agents, for many years too. So instead of referring to 'Chechen' terrorism, would it not make far more sense to speak of US and British terrorism? Are the Chechen insurgents not the Caucasian version of Jundallah - yet another CIA controlled terrorist network and is Doku Umarov not just the local Abdolmalek Rigi?

If this is true, what would explain the sudden surge in 'Chechen' terrorism in Russia? I would submit that all of the following:

• Payback for the US/NATO defeat in the 08.08.08 war in Georgia in which Russian forces easily crushed NATO-funded, NATO-trained and NATO-commanded Georgian forces even though the latter achieved strategic and tactical surprise and had the numerical superiority up until the last day of the war.
• The need to put Russian under pressure to yield to US demands over Iran, be it sanctions, the Russian completion of the Bushehr, the sale of S-300 air defense systems and the need to get a UN resolution against Iran.
• Payback for the US defeat in the Ukraine where the end of the color-coded revolution (orange, this time) is a crushing disaster for US geostrategic interests.
• The need to weaken Russian influence in the Caucasus (who would want to follow Saakashvili's example now?) and in Central Asia by showing that Russia is not nearly as strong as some might have perceived it to be.
• Payback for Russian support (weapons and credits) for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
  

I think that it is far more likely that this explains the sudden surge of 'Chechen' terrorism in Russia than a rather inexplicable, apparently cause-less, truly 'Chechen' hypothesis. To repeat, there is no sign whatsoever that the Chechen insurgency has recovered from its close to total defeat in the 2nd Chechen war. All, and I mean all, the reports from Chechnia proper seem to indicate that the security situation is Chechnia is actually very good and that Moscow's control of the region, via Ramazan Kadyrov's 'heavy-handed' security services, is actually rather good. This is a little reported fact, but the Russian military is not, at the moment, actively involved in Chechnia at all. The security mission is shared by the FSB, the MVD and local police forces.

I might be wrong, of course. We might be seeing the first phases of a real resurgence of Chechen terrorism. I personally don't trust Kadyrov and his thugs one bit. But right now, there is no explanation for the 'Chechen terror' theory at all. Moreover, reports out of Moscow claim that the FSB is looking into contacts which the Chechens had with the Georgians (again!). If the Georgians are involved in any way at all, that would point straight to Langley, at least in my opinion.

Anway - I submit to you this hypothesis and I hope that you will share your views on that we me and the rest of us.

On a personal note: I am taking a week off and, barring some truly major event, I shall not post new pieces here until next Thursday. I will be reading comments though, and I will try to post (very short) replies if needed.

Please feel free to use the comments section as a free for all forum, and post anything you want. On my blog there is no such thing as 'off-topic' and you need not worry about that.

Kind regards and many thanks,

The Saker

It is sometimes hard to tell Russia and the USA apart

I have been watching the news out of Moscow over the past 24 hours and they make for a rather depressing viewing indeed. No, I am not referring to the two blasts in the Moscow subway system which, of course, are tragic events, but to the rhetoric of the Russian authorities. Listening to the Russian news, I was wondering if the script had been written in Washington, DC.

President Medvedev immediately declared that the Russian legislation needed to be changed to fight against what many Russians now call 'al-Qaeda in the Caucasus'. What he did not explain, of course, is how exactly the current legislation had anything to do with the fact that terrorists could detonate bombs in Moscow.

Does that not sound familiar to those living in the USA?

And let's remember the past. While I am not accusing the Russian authorities of being behind an 9/11-like 'inside job' (although many questions remain about the 1999 appartment building bombings ), there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the first Chechen war was made possible by elements inside the Kremlin under Eltsin and that it was artificially prolonged by 'deep state' forces in Moscow.

Ever since Putin came to power, the various security services have seen a real bonanza of funding, quite in contrast to the military which has seen dramatic cuts in its financing and even key forces. For example, 3 (three!) Spetsnaz brigades from the GRU have been simply disbanded (the 67th, 12th and 3d) and there were plans of cutting the GRU command in Moscow by 50 (that is fifty!) percent. Even though this last folly has been put on hold, for the time being at least, the combination of these 'reforms' represents no less than a de-facto crippling of one of the most effective parts of the Russian military. There were also equally absurd plans to disband the 106th Guards Airborne Division, arguably the second best airborne division in the Russian military. These plans were also 'frozen', at least for a while. But the trend is clear: Putin and Medvedev are disbanding elite military forces.

While this is going on, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service forces are being superbly financed, they get many brand new, top of the line, training facilities, and their resources are greatly increased. To put it crudely, what the current Russian government wants is cops, not soldiers.

Combine that trend with the US-like response to the latest bombings and the image becomes clear: Russia is also on the slippery path of becoming a police state. There are, of course, some important differences between Russia and the USA and these should not be overlooked.

For one thing, Russia is a 'normal' country, not an empire like the USA. Crucially, Russia does abide by the norms of international law, unlike the USA which considers itself above any such law. Russia does have a truly free press. In contrast, the US press would make Suslov or Goebbels blue with envy. Russia is not under the ironclad control of Zionists (neither Jewish nor Christian). Russian intelligences agencies are not in the business of overthrowing governments worldwide and the Russian military budget is not larger than the combined military defense budget of the rest of the planet which, of course, the US 'defense' budget it. Russia does not have 700+ military bases worldwide and Russia does not have 16 major intelligence' agencies (only 3: FSB, GRU, SVR) and last, but not least, the level of education of the Russian population is higher than in the USA by several orders of magnitude. So the situation in Russia is not quite as ominous as it is in the USA. Still, all the signs are here that the Putin-Medvedev rule has all the signs of being a 'by the cops, for the cops' kind of regime.

Listening to Russian commentators immediately referring to "al-Qaeda in the Caucasus" as being behind the Moscow bombings made me feel very uncomfortable. Its not that I have any reason to doubt that Chechen terrorists are behind these bombings (I am quite aware that that the Chechen insurgents are among the most evil and crazed Wahabi thugs on the planet), but I cannot help but wonder why the 'al-Qaeda' label had to be attached to them. Sure, Doku Umarov, the so-called "First Emir of the Caucasus Emirate", is a murderous thug and the Chechen insurgency has had close contacts with what has become to be known as 'al-Qaeda' for many years. But these Chechens have also had contacts with the US, British, Turkish and Israeli intelligences agencies and yet no Russian commentators speaks of "CIA in the Caucasus"...

In the meanwhile, US and British 'terrorism experts' are on Russian TV pontificating about how 'terrorism is a world-wide global problem' which threatens 'all democratic states' (since when do Yanks and Brits refer to Russia as being 'democratic' again?!).

I just can about see the smiles of satisfaction in the White House.

The Saker

Train bombing serious blow to Russian security

by Eric Walberg

The worst terrorist attack to hit Russia in five years, the bombing of the Nevsky Express train last week, was almost certainly by Islamist extremists, and security forces are just not prepared for these less spectacular acts of terrorism, Russian security experts say.

The cause of the crash was identified as a homemade bomb that exploded on the tracks between Moscow and St Petersburg, killing 26, wounding scores and raising fears of a new era of terrorism in Russia. At the attack site, 320km northwest of Moscow, investigators found remnants of the bomb, equivalent to 15 pounds of TNT, that left a crater 1.5m deep. The bomb was apparently planted on the tracks and detonated while the second half of the train was passing. A second, less powerful explosive went off later at the site of the crash.

Russia suffered a wave of attacks in the early part of the decade as Muslim separatists from Chechnya struck trains and public places in Moscow and elsewhere, but there have been no such deadly assaults in recent years.

However, another Nevsky Express train was derailed in 2007 by an explosion, wounding more than two dozen people. Two men from Ingushetia were arrested, and just last month confessed to involvement in that blast. But the main suspect, a former Russian soldier-turned-Islamic-extremist, Pavel Kosolapov, remains at large. This previous blast and the sophistication of the present bombing, which involved two explosions, point to Islamists as the perpetrators. Aleksandr Bobreshov, a senior official of the state railway company, noted, “the second explosion, which occurred some time later, is the so-called double-blast method, carried out by North Caucasus sabotage groups.”

Police issued a sketch of a middle aged “stocky, red-haired man” seen in the vicinity of Friday’s blast, who may be Kosolapov. Kosolapov is believed to have been a close associate of Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev, killed by Russian security forces in 2006, who was the mastermind of several large-scale terrorist attacks, including the tragic 2004 Beslan school siege, which left 330 people dead, mostly children.

The 1990s were a violent and unstable period in Russia, though the only large-scale terrorist attack was during the 1994-96 First Chechen War -- the 1995 Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, which resulted in 200 deaths. It was Basayev’s first major “success” in as much as it led to peace talks with the Yeltsin’s government and resulted in the establishment of a quasi-independent Chechnya.

The next major terrorist acts were the five bombings of mostly Moscow apartment buildings that killed nearly 300 people in September 1999. None of the Chechen field commanders, including Basayev, accepted responsibility for the bombings and Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov denied involvement of his government. However, they coincided with border skirmishes between Chechnya and Dagestan, and evidence that Al-Qaeda and Wahabism were increasingly active in Chechnya. A ground offensive was launched from Dagestan by Russian troops in October which now marks the beginning of what is called the Second Chechen War, on which Vladimir Putin staked his presidency after he was appointed president by Boris Yeltsin in December 1999.

There followed a decade of gruesome war in Chechnya, with tens of thousands dying. There were also several spectacular terrorist attacks which this time Chechen rebels led by Basayev did take responsibility for. Russia’s security forces had to deal with the 2002 siege of a Moscow theatre which resulted in up to 200 deaths and the 2004 Beslan school assault. But Russia suffered no major attack after that, as the Chechen war ground to its supposed end.

Andrei Soldatov, editor of Agentura.ru, criticises Russian counter-terrorist efforts since Beslan, comparing officials to generals preparing for the last war, focussed on averting big attacks like Beslan, instead of preparing for smaller-scale strikes such as the bombings of the Nevsky Express, despite the 2007 warning blast. “We see new modus operandi taking shape, in which tiny cells of terrorists of three to five people plan and execute acts of sabotage,” he says. “But our security forces have militarised this problem, and are not set up to deal with small threats like that.”

Confirming his point, yet another bomb went off Monday in the southern republic of Dagestan, hitting a train travelling from the Siberian city of Tyumen to Baku in Azerbaijan. No one was injured in that blast, but analysts argue it was also by terrorists, who have never stopped operating in Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya, and warn that more ambitious attacks on Russia will no doubt follow. The northern Caucasus is witnessing a growth of forces that are no longer interested in local nationalism, or separatism, but “see themselves as being at war with Russia. Until lately, the most adventurous Russian Islamists tended to head for Afghanistan, or somewhere else, to wage jihad. Now there are signs that they are going to the Caucasus area, and this bodes very ill,” says Soldatov.

The Kremlin declared “mission accomplished” in Chechnya on 16 April 2009 after a decade and a half of military campaigning, pulling most of its forces out of the tiny republic, and leaving it under the control of local strongman Ramzan Kadyrov. Kremlin leaders argue that the harsh pacification of Chechnya, political crackdown and smarter security operations explain the fact that there has been no major terrorist attack on the Russian heartland since Beslan.

But it remains a fact that the terrorist tragedies in Russia during the past decade coincide with the brutal Second Chechen War, and that President Kadyrov himself is a loose cannon who has assassinated more than one opponent in the past year. Chechnya is also suspected of being a prime transit route for drug smugglers, and the lawlessness and threat to Russia emanating from Chechnya are not lost on other parties, in particular, the US and Israel. This latest incident is a serious blow not only to Putin’s strategy of holding on to Chechnya at all costs, but to overall Russian security.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/