Category Archives: Eurasia

Palestinian KGB

03 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia

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The document, which the University of Cambridge’s Churchill Archives Centre confirmed was authentic, was smuggled in to the UK by a defector called Vasily Mitrokhin.

It is entitled “KGB developments – Year 1983” and Mr Abbas identifies him by the codename “Krotov” or “mole”.

“‘Krotov’ – Abbas, Mahmoud, born 1935, origin Palestine, member of the executive committee of Fatah, PLO, Damascus, agent of the KGB,” says the brief entry.

BBC News.  “Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ‘was KGB agent'”.  September 8, 2016.

The KGB, when I was still connected with it, went to great lengths to transform an Egyptian born Marxist, Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, nom de guerre Abu Ammar, into a Palestinian-born Yasser Arafat.  It took the KGB — and my DIE — many years to endow Arafat with a credible Palestinian birth certificate and other identity documents, to build him a new past, and to train him at the KGB Balashikha special-operations training school east of Moscow.

Pacepa, Ion Mihai and Rychlak, Ronald J.  Disinformation.  P. 289.  Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2013.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/28/a-short-page-referencing-works-by-or-associated-with-ion-mihai-pacepa/ – 11/28/2016.

For those who may read in Russian, the Wilson Center hosts the Mitrohkin Archive at this address:

http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/52/mitrokhin-archive

How much of the intellectual poison delivered by Soviet-borne misinformation persists today in the Middle East Conflict?

Considering the looks of Syria, the miserable psychology shared between the dictatorships — on this blog, have a glance at the “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” — and the horrific results, a side by side glance at Hamas behavior in Gaza (x human rights) suggests the same malign narcissistic values continues to course through the governance in both locations.

There may be no longer a need to wonder why.

Reference – Abbas, KGB Coverage

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/17/palestine-s-prez-was-once-a-kgb-mole.html – 9/17/2016.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/08/world/soviet-papers-palestinian-president-was-a-kgb-agent/ – 9/8/2016.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37305953 – 9/8/2016.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/world/middleeast/mahmoud-abbas-israel-palestine-kgb.html – 9/7/2016.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-abbas-idUSKCN11E1U0 – 9/8/2016.

Bergman, Judith.  “The Soviet-Palestinian Lie.”  Gatestone Institute, October 16, 2016: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9090/soviet-union-palestinians 

Reference – Arafat, KGB

Before I defected to America from Romania, leaving my post as chief of Romanian intelligence, I was responsible for giving Arafat about $200,000 in laundered cash every month throughout the 1970s. I also sent two cargo planes to Beirut a week, stuffed with uniforms and supplies. Other Soviet bloc states did much the same. Terrorism has been extremely profitable for Arafat. According to Forbes magazine, he is today the sixth wealthiest among the world’s “kings, queens & despots,” with more than $300 million stashed in Swiss bank accounts.

Pacepa, Ion Mihai.  “The KGB’s Man.”  The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2003.

A little more than four months before the news this week that tests on Arafat’s body in a Swiss investigation showed “unexpected high activity” of polonium, a book co-authored by former Romanian spy chief Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa was published documenting Arafat’s training by the communist Soviet Union and pointing out that the only other known case of polonium-210 poisoning was the death of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

WND.  “New Evidence Suggests Kremlin Poisoned Arafat.”  November 7, 2013.

Related

Their report concluded that Arafat’s remains showed levels of polonium 18 times higher than normal.

Arafat’s widow, Suha, has reaffirmed to the BBC her belief that their report proves he was assassinated.

But she said she could not directly accuse anyone, saying that he had many enemies around the world.

BBC. “Arafat polonium findings confirmed by Swiss scientists.”  November 7, 2013.

Al Jazeera Investigative Unit.  “Swiss forensic report on Arafat’s death.” Document, 108-pages.  November 6, 2013.

http://honestreporting.com/plo-still-lying-about-arafats-legacy/ – 8/5/2015.

Yasir Arafat claims that he was born in Jerusalem, but he was actually born in Cairo. He claims to belong to the prominent Jerusalem family of Husseini, but he is at best only distantly related to it. He claims that he turned down a chance to go to the University of Texas, but according to one biographer, the Palestinian-born writer Saïd K. Aburish, it is highly unlikely that he was ever accepted. He claims to have disabled ten Israeli armored personnel carriers in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but Israel didn’t even have ten APCs in the sector he was in. He claims to have made millions as a businessman in Kuwait, but this, too, is almost certainly untrue.

Obviously, Arafat is a congenital liar. But there’s more to it than that: his lies are all designed to create an aura of romance around himself and the Palestinian people.

Brooks, David.  “A Brief History of Yasir Arafat: The PLO leader is a terrible administrator but a brilliant image crafter.”  The Atlantic, July/August 2002.

Reference – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat

The history of Palestine–Russia (and between 1917–1991, Palestine–Soviet Union) relations has been long and complex. For a number of historical and political reasons, it has been deeply interwoven with Russian (and between 1917–1991, Soviet) relations with the Zionist-Israeli enterprise, Palestinian nationalism, and Third World national liberation movements in general. However, at the same time, particularly between 1956 and 1990, Soviet-Palestinian relations were also part and parcel of the then ongoing Soviet-American confrontation, and even after the Cold War ended, the international and ideological role and importance of the Russian-Palestinian relationship always far exceeded its local and regional limitations. This relationship has continued even today. Russia remains an important player in the Middle East peace process and is a member of the Middle East Quartet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine%E2%80%93Russia_relations

The leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, established close collaboration with the Romanian Securitate service and the Soviet KGB in the beginning of the 1970s.[9] The secret training of PLO guerrillas was provided by the KGB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_and_the_Soviet_Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_for_the_Liberation_of_Palestine

According to Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior KGB archivist who defected to the UK in 1992, in early 1970 Haddad was recruited by the KGB as an agent, codenamed NATSIONALIST. Thereafter, in deep secrecy the Soviets helped to fund and arm the PFLP. The KGB had warning of its major operations and almost certainly sanctioned the most significant, such as the September 1970 hijackings. Haddad remained a highly valued agent till his death in 1978.

A letter by Yuri Andropov allegedly confirming Haddad’s role as an agent was independently discovered in Soviet archives by Vladimir Bukovsky and has since been published.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadie_Haddad

Reference – Gaza, Iran, Syria

http://armamentresearch.com/assessment-of-the-khaibar-1-rockets-captured-by-the-idf/ – 3/12/2014.

The Khaibar-1 (Arabic: خيبر-1‎‎) is a Syrian-made 302 mm [1] artillery rocket used by Hezbollah against targets in northern Israel. The name of the rocket was first revealed on July 28, 2006 by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a speech on Al-Manar television station.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaibar-1

Related: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/world/meast/israel-intercepted-weapons/ – 3/6/2014.

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-says-hezbollah-hamas-arent-terrorist-groups-50783 – 11/16/2015.

Web search “Moscow, PFLP” also produces results.

Related

In July, Russia’s Federal Security Service, successor agency to the KGB, released a list of 17 organizations the Russian Supreme Court had identified as “terrorist.” The FSB’s counterterrorism chief described all 17 groups as a threat to the Russian state and noted that almost all were linked in some way to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the 17. Hamas, however, was not listed, though it openly describes itself as the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood and frequently features deceased Brotherhood dignitaries like Hassan al-Banna and Abdullah Azzam alongside Hamas leaders on its posters and pamphlets. The reason for not listing Hamas, the counterterrorism chief explained, was that Hamas was not engaged in violent activity in Russia, nor was it linked to illegal armed groups operating in the North Caucasus. But Hamas supporters do maintain a presence in Russia, and the group does express solidarity with Chechen fighters, including suicide bombers.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/putins-new-friends-moscow-hosts-hamas – 3/19/2007.

http://www.rferl.org/a/soviet-islamist-terrorism-israel-america-disinformation-pacepa/25034290.html – 7/2/2013.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9090/soviet-union-palestinians – 10/16/2016.

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Syria – ” . . . an onslaught beyond the capabilities of the Syrian Air Force alone . . . “

26 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia, Syria

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Russia has been directly and repeatedly accused of war crimes at the UN security council in an unusually blunt session, as hopes of any form of ceasefire were flattened by the scale and ferocity of the Syrian regime’s assault on eastern Aleppo.

The war crimes accusations centred on the widespread use of bunker-busting and incendiary bombs on the 275,000 civilians living in the rebel-held east of the city, weapons that Moscow’s accusers say were dropped by Russian aircraft.

Borger, Julian and Kareem Shaheen.  “Russia accused of war crimes in Syria at UN security council session.”  September 26, 2016.

The quotation in the title comes from Matthew Rycroft, British ambassador to the UN, speaking in the video at the top of the referenced article.

BackChannels has maintained that Syria represents a complete medieval theater of politics and war, one in which ISIL itself, playing the role of the “The Terrorists”, was deliberately incubated by Assad for show.

Yesterday, in remarks made before a UN Security Council briefing on Syria, Ambassador Samantha Power brought to a head the issue of the barbaric medievalism characterizing the Assad regime’s entire response to what had begun as a mild popular challenge to the regime’s character and course through an agricultural and related economic downturn in 2011.  Of course, the sadism was evident at the outset as the regime established its position by arresting and torturing schoolchildren.

Posted to YouTube by U.S. Department of State, September 25, 2016.

United States Mission to the United Nations.  “Remarks at a UN Security Council Briefing on Syria.” Transcript.  September 25, 2016.

Additional Reference

Al-Masri, Karam and Rana Moussaoui.  “Covering Syria through hunger and fear.”  AFP Correspondent, September 26, 2016.

Callaghan, Louise and Toby Harnden.  “Putin’s gigantic firebombs torch Aleppo.”  The Times, September 26, 2016.

Sanchez, Raf.  “U.S. levels ‘barbarism’ charge, Britain accuses Russia of war crimes over bombing of Syrian civilians.”  National Post, September 26, 2016.

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FTAC – Syria – Anachronistic, Barbaric, Surreal

21 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Russia, Syria

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Before hostilities were established back in 2011, Syria may have been washed, as it were, in two streams of political poison that would render it untouchable and toxic to the west and its interests. Both streams would be located in the medieval worldview of political power as legitimate when exercised as dictatorship. Soviet Era duality combining anti-Semitic expression, socialism, and pan-Arab nationalism would become part of today’s “lostness”; and then on the political track linked to religious belief, “Islamist” exceptionalism and hubris would mirror the nationalist dictat.

As regards speaking . . . reporting, seeing, and speaking have not been of issue.

As regards extremism + post-Soviet history, ah, there’s the issue that now has former Iraqi Baath Party officers fighting for ISIL against (some) Iraqi Shiite militia embedded with Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers.

Which is the war being fought?

Medieval v Modern; Sunni v Shiite; “Political Absolutism” v Democracy — and then the lesser politics: Iran v Iraq; Turkey v Russia; Turkey v the Kurdish Liberation community; and so on

???

I tend to focus on post-Soviet Moscow for answers as regards motivation and policy for shaping the conflict as it appears. However, one might also focus on multiple elements in the field and ask about illusive motivations. There seem to me multiple aspects of the conflict that can only be seen _by everyone_ — all involved or on the sidelines — as absurdly anachronistic, barbaric (especially in the cultivation and expression of cruelty) and surreal.

The poem that set off the response was lovely and correct in its complaint about silence and its query about the lack of human intervention in deposing Bashar al-Assad.  However, great vision matters in Syria, and, in fact, it may now be all that matters in Syria, specifically the ability to observe from a distance in time and space that views the whole of it as contained in time.

Truly, the conflict began with a despot’s sadistic response to a peaceful challenge to his authority, and here five or six years later, thereabouts, those outside of Syria area overviewing a complete medieval theater of politics and war of which Putin, Assad, Khamenei, and Baghdadi — and similar others — are of a whole piece.

Different talks — same walk!

The leaders are not opponents: they have been cooperating perfectly in mutual destruction, disregard, and unspeakable sadism.

–33–

Also in Media – “Soviet-Nazi Collaboration and World War II” | World Affairs Journal, Essay by Alexander J. Motyl

18 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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For starters, the Moscow-controlled Communist International, and its sidekick, the Communist Party of Germany, made Hitler’s rise to power possible, if not indeed inevitable, by tarring the German Social Democrats as “social fascists” who threatened to split the proletariat and were, thus, a greater evil than the Nazis. Had the German left remained united against the real threat—Nazism—Hitler might not have come to power. (Many leftists make a similar mistake today, preferring Vladimir Putin’s fascism to American capitalism and thereby promoting war in Europe.)

Source: Soviet-Nazi Collaboration and World War II | World Affairs Journal – April 30, 2015.

FTAC – Clarification on Syria’s Medieval Meltdown

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Syria

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https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/06/02/assad-or-burn-it-assad-burns-it/

Moscow-Damascus-Tehran chose a long time ago to sustain political absolutism and produce between themselves a medieval spectacle, “Assad OR The Terrorists” AKA “Assad vs The Terrorists”. To get “The Terrorists”, Assad chose to bedevil noncombatants and early FSA, whose officers defected from his own corps, while allowing al-Nusra and others greater space and time — an act of incubation, deselection for combat — to consolidate.

No one likes this story — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/02/syria-assad-vs-the-terrorists-how-isis-defends-assad/ — because it suggests that Syria has been made into a complete theater of politics and war, courtesy of Putin, Assad, Khamenei, and, led into it by the early easing off, Baghdadi. The display or tableaux moves “the masses”, but it wasn’t necessary but to defend the politics of dictatorships (“different talks — same walk”) — and Syria has been all but destroyed by it.

We know there is such a thing as the medieval world because we look back on it.

The medieval takes up space in the world’s museums.

Is there such a thing as “modern”?

Perhaps time blends ages and experiences.

One may be certain, however, that what Assad has brought about in Syria combines modern aesthetic and social norms — recall that Concert at Palmyra — with a deeply medieval politics, one that feasts on blood and sets the other side up for doing as much.  Driven from the land or killed: noncombatants and perhaps the more modern of revolutionary units.

Posted to YouTube by Al Jazeera English, September 12, 2016.

Posted to YouTube by AFP News Agency, September 12, 2016.

BackChannels feels that Assad flanked by Putin and Khamenei and accompanied in their medieval journey by Baghdadi are “all in” for “absolute power” — “Different talks, same walk” — and none have either “internal brakes” or personal incentives for compromise.  However, external influences, starting with state (or “state”) money and either the want of it or the loss of it, might apply.

Also, for Putin, greater state interests plus, perhaps, interest in his reputation in history, may come to bear — no pun intended — for as the destruction of Syria intensifies and western intervention remains limited, it’s himself as much as Assad, the head of a Russian “client state”, who may in the world’s memory bear the brunt of responsibility for the horror of it.

Additional Reference

CBS/AP.  “Syria cease-fire — Assad’s “last shot” — seems to hold.”  September 13, 2016.

–33–

FTAC – From Correspondence – Focusing on the Despotic

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

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Dictatorships – “Different Talks – Same Walk” — they have nothing to do with any restricted political vision except to exploit language for the eventual attainment of “unlimited narcissistic supply.”

Truly, they flatter themselves, eventually leaving behind pyramids and billion-dollar mansions.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/malignant-narcissism/

Many make themselves living hell for others, unfortunately.

Successful states — plenty of cash across the geopolitical space and plenty to do as regards work — seem to me often well put together combines of public commitments and privately realized opportunities. As all things are worked out between actual persons and organizations, the general rule — public-private compacts, from the provision of infrastructure to area-wide tax policy to real estate development through to public regulation of production (environmental and labor legislation) and trade (controls on distribution and tariffs) — dissolves into improved qualities in living x area-sq.

In good societies, “qualities of living” (economic, physical, psychological, social, spiritual) should produce the benchmarks (casually stated: “are you better off today than you were so many years ago? And how so? And why?) to which constituencies and politicians respond.

The despotic evade popular judgment.

I think we focus too much on the “isms” and not enough on leadership and related social practices, but that feature in cultures need the poets out front. Depending on where one lives, the critics of power, especially despotic power, may be made to suffer in situ or in exile a long time.

Re. education — avoidance of indulging too many in the humanities and social sciences, or doing so through too much of a Far Right / Far Left professoriate, may make a political body too easily disinformed and misled. As I have no relevant power in that realm, or elsewhere, reparative action seems way beyond my reach.

I think generalists among writers have at best subtle influence over time.

A good conversation may be mild and yet moving.

The conversational partner had called for the removal of former communists from Russian politics; however, and President Putin included, the whole have transformed from the Soviet outlook and ditched the CPSU worldview, a process well underway but out of sight in the 1980s when the privileged of the Party had begun work on plans for afterward.  The “afterward” — December 26 of this year will mark 25 years of “afterward”) — has returned to Russians a deeply centralized national security state: FSB | Putin | Oligarchs.

Where the same has run the world into disturbing issues: Syria.

Barbarism, Corruption, and Cronyism v Rule of Law and Meritocracy

*

Medieval Political Absolutism vs Modern Democratic Distribution of Power

*

State-Based Development and Exploitation of Terrorists (as in the medieval realpolitik theatrical “Assad OR The Terrorists”) v Progressive Humanist Discipline in Military / Paramilitary Assessment and Response (as in modern Israel)

The items presented in “That v This” form need not be black-and-white in reality (or “realpolitik”) as the blend may be more the thing, but what’s on display in Russia- and Iran-enabled Syria is so bad as to make modern invention of the political themes involved very easy.  Stopping at an expanded “Medieval v Modern” three should suffice.

Through President Putin, certain features (like that KGB/FSB thing) of the Soviet Union have enjoyed a period of “Soviet Reunion”.  A number of characteristics associated with the period of dissolve around 1991 have been reversed, and the leader has returned to the people a certain boisterous quality.  However, the ambitious neo-medieval neo-imperial state’s “numbers” — military expenditures, reduced oil revenues, incidence of corruption throughout, capital inflows, reduced reserves — may be keeping internal development comparatively suspended.  That may do Putin’s popularity and reputation some damage over time.

General Reference

. . . the majority of the population sees the Kremlin not as the reason for the current economic recession but as the central power making a relatively successful attempt to consolidate society against external enemies that seek to strangle Russia economically. Somehow, it is not hard for the Kremlin-controlled media to find proof and symptoms—Western sanctions are presented as a major instrument of destruction, causing severe harm to the Russian economy; the oil price decline is declared to be the result of an anti-Russian plot; and even the situation around Ukraine is treated as an attack on Russian foreign trade, on Russia’s ability to cooperate with a neighboring market of 45 million people, and on the traditionally close economic ties between Ukraine and Russia. Over time, economic hardships have become a reason for the increase in public support of the president and his policies, not a reason for protesting.

Movchan, Andrey.  “Avoiding the Blame for Russia’s Economic Woes.”  Carnegie Moscow Center, March 30, 2016.

Oxenstierna, Susanne.  “Russia’s defense spending and the economic decline.”  Journal of Eurasian Studies, January 2016, 7:1, 60-70.

–33–

Russia’s P&R Cocktail – New Nationalism May Meet Falling Reserves with Religion

09 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Religion, Russia, Ukraine

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CHITA, September 9. /TASS/. The Russian Reserve Fund will be exhausted over the course of the next year, the budget deficit financing will start from the Russian National Wealth Fund, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Lavrov told journalists on Friday.

“The Reserve Fund, as I remember, will be used up over the next year,” Lavrov said. He added that once the fund is exhausted, the budget deficit financing will start from the National Wealth Fund.

http://tass.com/economy/898846 – 9/9/2016

Russia spent 18.4 percent of its reserve fund in a single month to plug deficits in the federal budget, Finance Ministry figures released Tuesday have revealed.

The country’s reserve fund fell from $38.18 billion to $32.2 billion during the course of August 2016, shrinking to just over a third of pre-crisis levels.

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-spends-18-of-its-reserve-fund-in-august-55223 – 9/6/2016

Long before Russia’s annexation of Crimea and unproclaimed war in the Donbass, Ukraine had become a religious battleground. Despite the warning of Yurii Chernomorets, Cyril Hovorun, and other observers, none of the leading Ukrainian and Western politicians foresaw the threat posed by an increasingly aggressive form of Orthodox Christianity being promoted by Moscow. As events in Ukraine have now shown, Orthodox fundamentalism is no less aggressive than Islamic fundamentalism, and the “Russian Spring” is no less bloody than its Arab counterpart.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/05/orthodox-terrorism – May 2015

If anyone thought Europe’s wars over religion were finished in 1648, the current standoff with Russia illustrates that that is not the case.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulcoyer/2015/05/21/unholy-alliance-vladimir-putin-and-the-russian-orthodox-church/#5cda28ee6881 – 5/21/2015

All of the above: the writing on the wall.

Putin and the oligarchs, slow to develop Russia’s internal economy, “T-34 Tank Tomatoes” notwithstanding, have now to face a precipitous drawdown on the state’s more convenient national reserves, and helping the state’s leaders meet that challenge: (FSB-enforced) faith in the exceptional magic of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Gaze upon that infernal cocktail that is equal parts politics and religion and find the terrible beauty of its love match in mixture: the greater the destruction and hardship wrought by one, all the greater the glory and proof of Divine favor provided by the other.

Says BackChannels.

Complementing Reference

http://www.eastwestreport.org/articles/ew05108.htm – Winter 1997 – “Orthodoxy, Oil, Tabacco, and Wine: Do They Mix?” East West Report.

http://www.geopolitika.lt/?artc=4593 – “The Rise of Russian Nationalism” – 4/4/2011.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/25/putin-s-number-one-gunman-in-ukraine-warns-him-of-possible-defeat.html – 7/25/2014 (on the invasion of the Donbass but linked here by the purpose of the demonstration of power and annexation of Crimea).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulcoyer/2015/05/21/unholy-alliance-vladimir-putin-and-the-russian-orthodox-church/#5cda28ee6881 – 5/21/2015.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/09/russia-ultra-nationalist-crackdown-150916131749975.html – “Behind Russia’s ultra-nationalist crackdown: Despite targeting neo-Nazis and other hate groups, the Kremlin is rolling out its own version of the ‘Russian world’.” – 9/23/2015.

http://rbth.com/opinion/2016/02/10/why-has-the-world-waited-so-long-for-a-catholic-orthodox-reconciliation_566661 – 2/10/2016 – “Why has the world waited so long for a Catholic-Orthodox reconciliation?”

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/how.the.russian.orthodox.church.is.backing.vladimir.putins.new.world.order/81108.htm – 3/3/2016.

http://religious-nationalism.blogspot.com/2016/03/putin-wars-and-russian-orthodox-church.html – 3/13/2016.

http://christiantimes.com/article/thousands-fast-and-pray-after-vladimir-putin-signs-new-russian-law-restricting-religious-freedom/58896.htm – 7/14/2016.

KGB/FSB | ROC

A secret Soviet-era document uncovered in Estonia suggests that Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and spiritual leader of tens of millions of Christians, was a fully fledged KGB agent.

Accusations that Alexy, elected Patriarch in 1990, co-operated closely with the KGB under the code name ‘Drozdov’ (Thrush), have circulated since a parliamentary commission was allowed a brief peek at secret police files in Moscow in 1991.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/feb/12/1 – 2/12/1999

Liberation theology, of which not much has been heard for two decades, is back in the news. But what is not being mentioned is its origins. It was not invented by Latin American Catholics. It was developed by the KGB. The man who is now the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, secretly worked for the KGB under the code name “Mikhailov” and spent four decades promoting liberation theology, which we at the top of the Eastern European intelligence community nicknamed Christianized Marxism.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417383/secret-roots-liberation-theology – 4/23/2015.

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION: The two texts that follow—they are actually two parts of a single essay—are of crucial importance for an understanding of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Communist Yoke. They were written by a true confessor of Orthodoxy, who died in prison in the Soviet Union in 1971 for having written these and similar texts. They are presented here as a direct response to the plea of the author himself (p. 484 of Russia’s Catacomb Saints): “This betrayal… must be made known to all believers in Russia and abroad, because such an activity of the Patriarchate… represents a great danger for all believers.” The texts are primary documents exposing with direct and irrefutable proof the conscious betrayal of Russian Orthodoxy by its own hierarchs.

http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/cat_tal.aspx – “The Moscow Patriarchate and Sergianism: An Essay by Boris Talantov.”  Orthodox Christian Information Center, circa 1968.  Related in Wikipedia: “Russian Greek Catholic Church“; “1943 Bishop’s Council of the Russian Orthodox Church“; “Patriarch Sergius of Moscow“.

Only after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 did Joseph Stalin finally start to scale back the anti-religious campaign, needing the moral support of the Church during the war. In the early hours of September 5, 1943, Stalin met with the three chief hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church and promised some concessions to religion in exchange for their loyalty and assistance. Among the concessions were the permission to open the Moscow Theological Seminary and Academy, the release of imprisoned clerics, the return of some church property, including the famous Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra. In return, the Soviet government put the Church under the control of its secret services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Sergius_of_Moscow

–33–

FTAC – Syria, Compressed

05 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Russia, Syria

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This is basic:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/02/syria-assad-vs-the-terrorists-how-isis-defends-assad/

And the confusion in the “battlespace” fails to recognize the true oppositions in the Syrian Conflict and Tragedy.

The correct framing: the 25th anniversary (Dec. 26) of the dissolve of the Soviet Union.

The correct opposition:

“Medieval Political Absolutism” vs “Modern Democratic Distributions of Power”

The medieval axis: Moscow-Damascus-Tehran + others who invest themselves in authoritarian politics. Fair slogan for the kleptocratic dictatorships: “Different Talks — Same Walk!”

The dictators are those who walk all over their own constituents (or subjugated populations).

The modern axis: the United States, NATO, the open democracies of the west and worldwide.

There are a lot of fence sitters — Pakistan may be one — but the medieval world is on full display between Putin, Assad, Khamenei, AND Baghdadi.

I don’t know when the perception of the witness of the “Syrian Conflict and Tragedy” will kick in, grow, and align within the lovers of broadly distributed freedom and prosperity worldwide, but this blog has been working on that for a while.

By now, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may know the extent to which his enterprise had been enabled in its infancy to service to serve in these ways:

  • A collector of “jihadist” passion;
  • An organization suiting the blackmailing of the west in a political theatrical one might call “Assad OR The Terrorists” — never mind the both operating as tyrants;
  • A goad to the west, especially mixed in with the hapless of Syria’s mass migration;
  • An excuse to destroy (“Assad or We Burn It”) Syria and depopulate the region for the greater political control of the despotic powers.

Those who merely follow each day’s headlines (and Russian post-Soviet disinformation) will not “see” the political reality that is Syria.  They will see the glorious “Assad vs The Terrorist” and witness Moscow’s latest in military technology set loose on the landscape, while those who dig, and those who have memory — all the way back to Daara, 2011 — will get the whole story, understand it, and perhaps be enraged by what it represents.

Related

Like Syria itself, Daraa has been ripped apart by five years of conflict. What began as a local protest movement against the Assad political dynasty slowly morphed into an international proxy war that’s drawn in the United States, Russia, Iran and nearly all of Syria’s neighbors. Hundreds of thousands are dead, millions are displaced. While it’s difficult to find a Syrian who honestly believes there’s an end in sight, there’s some agreement about where it all began: with Omar’s friends. The graffiti they dared to paint on the schoolyard walls has become an origin myth for Syria’s tragic conflict — not just for the citizens of Daraa, but for the entire country.

By some accounts, the schoolkids were deeply political; they painted dozens of political slogans that day, and eventually set fire to a police kiosk to express solidarity with anti-police protests erupting across the Arab world. Omar remembers his friends a little differently. Sure, they had an eye on Egypt and Tunisia, but Omar says they defaced the school wall because they were teenagers, and it was the rebellious thing to do, not because they were die-hard revolutionaries.

https://news.vice.com/article/the-young-men-who-started-syrias-revolution-speak-about-daraa-where-it-all-began – 3/15/2016.

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