Category Archives: Eurasia

Revived Arcs of Dictatorship – Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Asia, China, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Politics, Regions, Russia, South America, Ukraine, Venezuela

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To Russian and Syrian officials and their supporters, the Syrian war and the standoff over the Crimean Peninsula are essentially part of a single, larger battle, against post-Cold War American unilateralism.

Unity Coalition for Israel.  “Russian Defiance Is Seen as a Confidence Builder for Syria’s Government.”  March 24, 2014.

When Putin’s Russia pledged $10 million to Syrian relief while spending $52 billion to host the winter games in Sochi, it told the world unmistakably what it was going to be about: the greatness of the Great Leader.

Why shouldn’t Bashar al-Assad continue what he’s doing while “encouraging” votes to reelect him as their Great Leader?

Why should Vladimir Putin halt the expansion of either mafia enterprise or Russian hegemony in Crimea?

* * *

Six documents stamped with the seal of the Venezuelan army show that as far back as December 2001, agents of then president Hugo Chavez — Maduro’s mentor — sought to build a paramilitary. What is more, the recruitment efforts targeted military bases in order to incorporate army personnel into this non-uniformed militia. In other words, the Chavez government was looking for trained professionals who could handle weapons.

O’Grady, Mary Anastasia.  “Sanctioned killers make a mockery of ‘democracy’ claims.”  The Wall Street Journal, March 24/25, 2014.

I read the above in hard copy at the coffee shop an hour ago, so it has been out today, Monday, March 24.

Venezuela’s axis may be counterpoised to Russia, as I recall the note of a South American friend: “You can see the oil rigs of the Chinese from Miami.” [1]

The business would seem to come along with the way of doing business – or perhaps dictatorships simply understand one another in the way of crooked and sociopath elites:

The challenges facing most of the Caribbean nations are neither unique nor entirely isolated. They include high unemployment and migration levels, unsustainable levels of government debt and increasingly high costs of energy. In fact, the high costs of energy have led some small Caribbean island nations to join Hugo Chavez’s radical ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas) in exchange for cheap Venezuelan petroleum. When a powerful nation such as China comes on the scene and offers loans, credits and investment, local actors take substantial notice, especially when the traditional hegemon, the United States, seems preoccupied elsewhere.

Menéndez, Fernando.  “China Comes to the Caribbean.”  China – U.S. Focus, January 25, 2014.

To spell in schematic, “Putin-Assad-Khamenei” and “Putin-Yanukovych” (so sorry it didn’t last) seems to me perfectly sensible, and then to suggest a similar but Chinese-oriented path for Chavez seems not unreasonable.

The line may be missing a dot or two, but the dots are there and whether intentionally among the Bond-villain set — in the post-00s of the 21st Century, these already have their nukes — or unconsciously by way of the anomic lust for money that produces the policy that pipes out Sudanese oil while ignoring the Darfur Genocide, for example — hardly matters: free Europeans say “hello” to the new old bosses, the old familiars, the kind that talk kindly while select suspect associates are thrown off the roofs above their heads and the children of their constituents are barrel bombed into dead certain compliance with their will.

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Related on BackChannels: “Draw Near, the Next World Order — China and Russia Hang Together.”  March 3, 2014.

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Russia Today – Russia, Yesterday – RT, Please!

23 Sunday Mar 2014

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

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The officially controlled phase of glasnost began the examination of “blank pages” in Soviet history. Literary journals filled up with long-suppressed works by writers such as Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Pasternak, and Andrey Platonov. Newspapers and magazines carried stories of Stalin-era acts of repression, concentration camps, and mass graves. The works of Marxist theoretician Nikolay Bukharin, shot in 1938 for alleged rightist deviation, appeared. By revealing communist party crimes against the Soviet peoples, and the peasants in particular, glasnost further undermined Soviet federalism and contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Data as of July 1996

Russia-Glasnost – Mongabay.com.

* * *

RIA Novosti is part of a massive effort by Russia to build and project to the world an image of a country where the economy is booming and democracy is developing. The campaign is designed to counter what the government and many people here see as unrelenting and unfair Western criticism of declining political freedoms under President Vladimir Putin, who is preparing to hand over his post, but perhaps little of his power, after the election last Sunday of his handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev.

Russia Pumps Tens of Millions Into Burnishing Image Abroad – 3/6/2008.

* * *

Anyone who has watched Russia’s English-language propaganda channel RT over the past 10 months would have learned that in Syria, foreign-funded terrorists, Israeli operatives, and American intelligence agents are attempting to destabilize a benevolent, popular autocrat.

Russia’s International News Channel RT Warps the Truth About the Syrian Uprising – Tablet Magazine – 2/13/2012.

* * *

1. So on Saturday, RT used all kinds of chyrons to explain the situation in Crimea. For example: The Russian military is a “stabilizing force for Ukraine.”

14 Insane Moments From RT’s Coverage Of The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine – 3/3/2014.

* * *

The job quickly began to seem strange. The editing process was multilayered: “First you have somebody who’s a native English speaker, usually British,” Bivens said. This person edits the script for clarity and tightness. “Then you have a Russian and they make sure that it fits whatever narrative they want it to fit.”

How The Truth Is Made At Russia Today – 3/13/2014.

* * *

It’s been a busy few weeks for Vladimir Putin. In the last month, the Russian president has hosted the Olympic Games, invaded a neighboring country and massed troops along its border. Back in Moscow, the Kremlin has cranked up the volume of hysterical anti-Western propaganda to a roar while cracking down on the last vestiges of the free media.

* * *

While filming in Ukraine over the past several weeks, I was struck by how the revolution that began in February has become a full-scale propaganda war, a surreal throwback to Soviet times, with both sides digging in and stoking old, bitter biases and grievances.

In the battle for the future of Ukraine, control of the media could be just as important as the military bases and government buildings.

Inside Ukraine’s Propaganda War | Foreign Affairs / Defense | FRONTLINE | PBS – 3/14/2014.

* * *

Vladimir Putin and the Lessons of 1938 – Garry Kasparov – POLITICO Magazine – Gary Kasparov – 3/16/2014.

* * *

The news director, who was Russian, pitched the network as an alternative news source that dared to challenge conventions. “Question More” was the network’s slogan.

I Was Putin’s Pawn – Elizabeth Wahl – POLITICO Magazine – 3/21/2014.

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Language as a culturally-invented survival technology would seem to separate cultures into one of two channels: Channel One: Lies, Loyalty, Power, Subjugation; Channel Two: Truth Telling, Uncertainty, Independence, Dignity.

Which have you chosen?

The language behavior of Putin-Assad-Khamenei would seem to be that of the autocrat / malignant narcissist whose every effort seeks the manipulation of his targets, and what works, works: the censoring and intimating of other and critical and inquiring voices; the dissemination of lies, patronage, and propaganda. Masked by passionate nationalism, these have embarked on criminal adventures from their first words.

What it means to be Crimean Russian in Russia (Today) is to be subjugated to the story whipped up by Colonel President Emperor Putin because in the colonel president emperor’s world, that is the only story that matters.

What it would mean to be Crimean Russian in Crimea would be to live in the other world, distinctly Russian, independent of mind, and free of dictatorship.

Other Ukrainians, some with Ukrainian nationalism in mind, know that Ukraine is not Russia and they are not Russian, and they will not stand the impositions of Russian state-sponsored mafia (how else to describe the deposed president Viktor Yanukovych?) on their newly liberated and western-aligning state, but Ukrainian Russians may feel the tug of divided loyalties, and at that fork might ask a question:

Is Putin Russia?

Is Russia Putin?

Are autocracy and subjugation inherently Russian?

In particular, in Crimea, for the Russians of the peninsula, are autocracy and subjugation (their own to Putin’s manner of doing business as illustrated by what has happened to RT since Glasnost) inherently irresistible?

If Crimea’s Russians have been thinking about their wallets more than their freedoms, including the freedom to discern from an open and free media a true state of affairs in foreign policy an trade, they may be surprised to find themselves Ukrainian after all.

If not, they will live in the bubble atop the vertical of power, i.e., the world according to Russia Today – RT, Kremlin invented: Kremlin approved.

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Eastern Ukrainian city divided over Russia ties – YouTube – AFP – 3/19/2014.

Additional Reference

McFaul to quit as U.S. Russia ambassador after conclusion of Sochi Olympic Games – The Washington Post – 2/4/2014.

Putin on the Couch – Susan B. Glasser – POLITICO Magazine – 3/13/2014.

Crimean War redux, with Putin as czar – The Globe and Mail – 3/18/2014.

Who Is Putin? | Return Of The Czar | FRONTLINE | PBS

Yanukovich’s Assets

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It’s Hard Helping You When You Are Anti-Semitic, Among Other Things

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Syria, Ukraine

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From Syria with No Love for Jews

“The Diaspora” (Al-Shatat), a Syrian-produced TV series, aired last year during the Ramadan on Al-Manar (Hizbollah TV) is now being aired on Iranian TV. The series covers the period of the Zionist movement, and is primarily a depiction of the classic anti-Semitic libel that attributes to Jews the desire for world domination. The series revolves around the “Secret Jewish World Government . . . .”

Iranian TV now airing Al-Shatat, Horrific Syrian Anti-Semitic series | Conflict Resolutions and World Security Solutions | worldsecuritynetwork.com – 12/14/2014

* * *

The Syrian National Coalition recently released a statement denouncing what it perceived to be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s media exploitation of Israel’s medical care for wounded Syrian in the Golan area.

Calling it “nothing more than a publicity gimmick”, the statement from the SNC’s media center went on to say that “the Israeli entity stood against the Syrian uprising from the start”, and that wounded Syrian civilians were “forcedly [sic] taken to Israeli hospitals and are being employed today for marketing their political agenda”.

For the Sake of Syria, the Political Opposition Has to Grow Up » From Homs to Istanbul – 2/20/2014.

Remember the unholy troika: Putin-Assad-Khamenei.

Khamenei’s regime appears to enthusiastically endorse the most libelous and medieval of depictions of The Jew, but today with a television show.

And cartoons.

One may have hoped that the “moderate” revolutionary side would prove itself more enlightened, idealistic, and just in relation to its views about Jews and others in contrast to the rants and slants of Bashar al-Assad and Ayatollah Khamenei — and the helpful Russian who keeps his mouth wisely shut in this regard even as he maintains the post-Soviet architecture that has so far lengthened Assad’s tyrannical stay.

While Syrian National Coalition leader Ahmed al-Jarba calls for arms supply from the west, sustaining the self-defeating anti-Zionist creed and its correlates would appear to sustain also the coalition’s agony.

If Jarba’s begging arms while remaining anti-west, anti-Jew, anti-Israel, he may continue begging because those interests — democratic, modern, west, also informed by Jewish minorities in concert with others, also represented in the day-to-day politics and spirit of the Jewish State of Israel (which treats Syrian casualties as injured persons, ethically disregarding their politics while in care) — may also wish to be represented in the greater international community arrayed against Assad’s dictatorship in its every hideous aspect.

The reader may judge for himself the tone of the “moderate” revolution through the pages of the Syrian Free Press that purports to represent the main base of the revolution: Netanyahu Calls the Whole World “Anti-Semites” | – 2/24/2014.

Russia’s Leveraging of Anti-Semitic Disinformation in Ukraine Can Only Damage Russia’s Prestige

Putin at the global political poker table has strong cards in Russian anti-Islamist experience and, lately, a neutral to positive stance toward Jews, enabling him, cynically perhaps, to claim better defense of “western values” in Syria (while his client’s snipers paralyze children) and in Ukraine.

While pursuing Russian nationalist imperialism — well, I can’t call it “Soviet” — Putin may now amplify, invent, and portray opposition to Russian expansion as coming from fascist religious or nationalist movements.

It’s an awful strategy, relying as it does on political gaslighting — i.e., planting false information to produce some wanted perception.

What kicked off this rant is this from March 14: Kiev Mob Stabs Rabbi Hillel Cohen in Anti-Semitic Attack (IB Times).

True to thesis, or at least echoed by IB journalist Gianluca Mezoofiore: “The attack plays into the hands of ousted president Viktor Yanukovich’s rhetoric and to that of the Kremlin that Ukraine’s revolutionary movement that removed him is made up of Nazis and extremists.”

In Ukrainian uprising reality, Jews, ever among the oldest of liberation theologians, have played another role:

Balaclava-clad far-right paramilitaries fire into the air at the funeral in Ukraine of an anti-government protestor. This is not a tribute to a fellow right-wing nationalist, but to a Jewish construction worker, Alexander Scherbanyuk.

Of the approximately 100 people killed during the protests in Kiev that swept Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich from power in February, three were Jews, according to Vyacheslav Likhachev, a Ukrainian anti-Semitism expert.

Three Jews among those killed in Ukraine uprising – Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz – 3/18/2014.

Facebook’s Euromaidan page has a note from February 20 on Alexander Scherbanyuk: “12:00 – Chernivtsi Alexander Scherbanyuk, a Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party member, has been killed. He was killed by a sniper bullet to the heart. Alexander Scherbanyuk, an Afghan, has left behind three children. – “LigaNews”

Of Joseph Shiling, the Voices of Ukraine blog notes, “He was 61. He and his wife Anna raised two daughters, and he has four granddaughters.”

That just doesn’t sound very fascist, nationalist, or particularly “thuggy” to me.

May Grandpa Shiling rest in peace.

The national or religious heritage of those who were killed is, of course, not important in truth. Just as their age, gender, political views aren’t important. Everything is unimportant, except the fact that they are Ukrainians and that they are heroes of Ukraine, who died in its honor while fighting against evil and injustice.

The Jewish Division of Ukraine’s Heaven’s Hundred | Voices of Ukraine – 3/11/2014.

The third Jewish martyr to the revolution: Evgeniy Kotlyar, an environmentalist.

Scary man, huh?

I kid, of course.

The Ukrainian revolutionary government knows it inherits an issue in regard to anti-Semitism, but anti-Semitism does not appear to be its problem but rather a common social issue, the same present in measures small and smaller — a little larger with Jobbik in Hungary — in every political community of the west.

During a special discussion called “The growth of extremism, radicalization and xenophobia”, Nalyvaichenko demonstrated to representatives of the parliamentary delegations of European countries examples of anti-Semitic and xenophobic images and publications on “Berkut” pages in social networks and talked about illegal actions of Special Forces. He noted that in the society, especially among law enforcement agencies, dissemination of information that might incite ethnic hatred and encourage violence against minorities, was unacceptable.

Nalyvaichenko raised the issue of xenophobia among “Berkut” at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly – News – Valentyn Nalyvajchenko – 2/14/2014.

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko heads Ukraine’s revolutionary security service.

Thank God.

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Revolutions develop along two fronts: one is outside the person.

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FTAC – On Global Conflict’s Edge

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journal, Philology, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia

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https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yuri-Bezmenov/46501554141 Sign on. 🙂 Not quite everyone’s on Facebook, especially if they’re wanted (by INTERPOL) or popular in some heavy (as in the 1960’s “heavy, dude”) way, in which case they may be found at their university or think-tank address.

What’s interesting here, perhaps, is watching this edge in conflict surface, a conflict between the criminally deluded and utterly dishonest and the victims and targets of that form in political delusion and dishonesty.

Related: Yuri Bezmenov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; (1) Yuri Bezmenov (Facebook).

Video one-of-nine about control of political language:

Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press 1/9 – YouTube – 1/5/2009.

From the above-cited personality page for Yuri Bezmenov:

Yuri Alexandrovitch Bezmenov (1939 – 1993) is a former KGB propagandist who was assigned to New Dehli, India, defected to the West in 1970, and was interviewed by Edward Griffin in 1985. Bezmenov explains his background, some of his training, and exactly how Soviet propaganda is spread in other countries in order to subvert their teachers, politicians, and other policy makers to a mindset receptive to the Soviet ideology.

* * *

Not so oddly, I spent the morning watching Gene Hackman and Will Smith in Enemy of the State. Then after brunch this cold rainy day turned to Facebook where I had a message waiting from a correspondent in South America noting the Far Out Left’s desire to destroy Israel. My response to that:

Far Left: thieves.

I’m a liberal socialist.  Correa and I would probably understand one another.

These guys of the Far Out Left seem descended from the 1970s. Time Warped. Everyone’s a Carlos wannabee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_the_Jackal

If he / they didn’t have a convenient political lingo, he / they would be — and have proven so — dumb criminals.

The world faces stark choices as regards the political kleptocrats (sometimes, when I’m feeling jazzy, I call them “kleptocats!”) we have come to know and sometimes love — for being too easily charmed — as dictators, but when you watch what they do to constitutions, courts, and laws, then to men — old ones too, and women and children — in their unbridled ambition for absolute control over others, you know that the war “over there”, or perhaps the one you’re in, is no longer a lonely war but rather a war — sub-state, transnational, global — neither contained nor isolated.

* * *

Often for revolutionaries there are two wars: one rages outside of the person, the other rages within.

* * *

My South American correspondent acknowledged (and here I quote with light editing for style), “many studied in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with scholarships.”

Such would be at least in their 40s — it has been more than 22 years — and in the prime of their programming.

Others, say the first to rifle through abandoned STASI offices in defunct East Germany, may be in the prime of their counter-programming program, and I should think them today an unknown quantity in the former Soviet empire.  Perhaps they too will surface in the coming days, weeks, and months.

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Ukraine – Crimea – Design by Putin – Whitewash by Potemkin – Plus Obama’s Sanctions Announcement

17 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions, Ukraine

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THE outcome of the “referendum” in Crimea was never in doubt. With Russian troops occupying the peninsula and anyone who does not want to join Russia staying away from the bogus procedure, the 97% vote in favour of becoming part of Russia is not a surprise.

Crimea votes to secede: Ukraine’s amputation | The Economist

* * *

The government in Kiev has accused Moscow of deliberately stirring up tensions in the east by bringing in professional activists and provocateurs from across the border. In a series of ominous statements, Russia’s foreign ministry has said it may be forced to act to “protect” ethnic Russians – an expression that appears to provide a rationale for future military incursions.

Crimea votes to secede from Ukraine in ‘illegal’ poll | World news | The Guardian – 3/16/2014.

* * *

The Kremlin describes last month’s uprising in next-door Ukraine as an illegitimate fascist coup. It says dark rightwing forces have taken over the government, forcing Moscow to “protect” Ukraine’s ethnic Russian minority . . . With Ukraine on the brink of invasion and division, most people in Kiev blame the country’s troubles on the former president. “This is Yanukovych’s fault,” Zhenia, a pensioner, said, surveying the battleground in Institutska Street, where many were gunned down. She was crying.

Kiev’s protesters: Ukraine uprising was no neo-Nazi power-grab | World news | The Guardian – 3/13/2014.

* * *

Links between Yanukovych, the Party of Regions and crime have been long known to policymakers as seen in U.S. cables from Kiev available through WikiLeaks.

At least 18 Party of Regions deputies have criminal ties, according to Hennadiy Moskal, deputy head of Parliament’s Committee on Organized Crime and Corruption.

Viktor Yanukovych: From partner to violent kleptocrat – UPI.com – 2/14/2014.

Related: Yanukovych Leaks

* * *

Criminals lie.

When one wants something one shouldn’t have, when one wishes to hide something with which one doesn’t wish to be associated, one may resort to lying but not always, much less inevitably, erase the trail.

In fact, the trail follows in the kept anger of those wronged by criminal behavior, in the bent verdicts and forged documents attending sophisticated theft, or, in Yanukovych’s case, which journal keeping may be likened to the records of plunder and murder maintained by benumbed Nazi officials, the diary of bribes and of breathtaking sums acquired and spent across multiple estates and headier symbols of wealth.

A liberal socialist myself, somewhat, I’d nonetheless offer the problem of whether men shouldn’t be wealthy, filthy rich, swimming in moolah — I think private wealth is great but legally obtained, earned or inherited for a generation or two.

The truth is simple: I’d rather the rich man were the audited owner of a Fortune 500 company than a dumb mafia boss or vicious — and equally vacuous — pirate.

Stalin engineered the famine to rid himself of a stubborn enemy. Ukrainians had fought for their independence during the Russian Revolution, and for a short time, they had beaten back the Reds. What’s more, Ukraine, being the “bread basket of Europe,” had a rich and ancient culture of farmers, who wanted to hold on to their language, their land and their identity. As a civilization, Ukraine is a thousand years older than Moscow. For Stalin, as for Putin today, this would be a very hard back to break.

How to Explain What’s Happening in Ukraine | TIME.com – 12/17/2013.

* * *

The combination of military adventurism and domestic crackdown is not a well-advised recipe for stabilizing the regime. This Saturday’s planned march in downtown Moscow against the war on Ukraine will now be joined by people outraged at the imposition of censorship. Putin’s Kremlin, not opposition leaders, remains the best recruiter for the Russian protest movement.

Moscow Braces for Protests Against Ukraine Aggression | World Affairs Journal – 3/14/2014.

Related: Thousands In Moscow Protest Crimea Military Action – 3/15/2014.

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Obama says U.S. will “stand firm” in support of Ukraine, expands sanctions on Russia – YouTube – (today).

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Ukraine and the Shrewd Kleptocrat

13 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions, Russia, Ukraine

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She warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that his actions would lead to “catastrophe” for Ukraine.

“It would also change Russia economically and politically,” she said.

But Putin has reiterated his previous stance: Ukraine’s crisis was caused by internal factors, not by Russia.

Change course in Crimea or face costs, West warns Russia – CNN.com

* * *

President Obama has one crucial lever he can activate immediately, as was done in the case of deposed Ukrainian Viktor Yanukovich: identify, freeze, and disclose stolen assets hidden in the West.

Want Putin’s Attention On Ukraine? Follow His Money – 3/3/2014.

Related: Putin’s Watch Collection Dwarfs His Declared Income | The Moscow Times – 6/6/2012; Helping Russia avoid Putin kleptocracy – CSMonitor.com – 9/27/2011; WikiLeaks cables condemn Russia as ‘mafia state’ | World news | The Guardian – 12/1/2010.

* * *

Britain has been handing visas to hundreds of Russian oligarchs in return for them paying at least £1million towards our £1.2trillion national debt.

Russian and Chinese businessmen have been allowed to jump to the front of the immigration queue by ‘investing’ a seven-figure sum in Government gilts.

Russian oligarchs buy UK visas for £1million | Mail Online – 2/25/2014.

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MOSCOW — When Vladimir V. Putin returned to the Russian presidency in 2012, one of the first messages he sent to his political elite, many of them heads of banks and large corporations, was that the times had changed: Owning assets outside Russia makes you too vulnerable to moves by foreign governments, he told them. It is time to bring your wealth home.

Titans in Russia Fear New Front in Ukraine Crisis – NYTimes.com – 3/10/2014.

* * *

One notable statistic about Russia is that the mean wealth of its 110m adults last year was $10,980 while the median was $870. In other words, if the country’s assets were equally divided, the man in the middle would possess more than $10,000 but, in practice, his net worth is less than a 10th of that sum. This is the result of 110 billionaires controlling 35 per cent of the wealth.

Punishing a few oligarchs in London is not enough – FT.com – 3/5/2014.

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The pundits fret over what to do with the Russia-Crimea-Ukraine debacle not in relation to mere Slavic expansionism — start, oh Russians, with investments in the east for that — but rather the expansion of Putin’s “mafia state“.

______ For readers who have a couple of hours to spare (right now) ______

Putinism and Russian Protest – YouTube – 2:02:48 – posted 10/29/2012.

That I find this kind of thing exciting scares me!

Panels about Putin may be inseparable from concerns associated with political psychology.

* * *

Garry Kasparov’s Advice to Obama: ‘Forget About Diplomatic Solution’ with Putin – YouTube 3/6/2014.

* * *

On Viktor Yanukovych:

Revelations In The Yanukovych Papers – YouTube – 3/12/2014.

Primary Source: What the Ousted Ukrainian President Tried to Hide Before He Fled | New Republic – 3/12/2014.

Related Reference

Garry Kasparov on Putin | Fox Business Video (today).

Russia’s Putin Cracks Down on Media When We Need Journalism the Most | New Republic (today): Most of Lenta’s reporters have resigned in protest, writing in a farewell letter, “The trouble is not that we’ve lost our jobs. The trouble is that you’ve got nothing to read.”

Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina on Putin’s War in Crimea | New Republic – 3/2/2014.

Is Vladimir Putin insane? Hardly – latimes.com – 3/11/2014.

Russia – A mafia state? – YouTube – 1:43:47 – roundtable with Luke Harding – posted 7/27/2012.

Can Putin Contain Post-Putinism? – YouTube – 1:24:23 – – 11/28/2012.  AKA “Can Putinism Be Reformed?”

Putinism and Russian Protest – YouTube – 2:02:48 – 10/29/2012: “Dictators will always steal as much as they can.”

Yanukovych Leaks

Reference – Media and Propaganda

Stephen Colbert Tackles Vladimir Putin’s TV Propaganda – 🙂

Crimea: Putin vs. Reality by Timothy Snyder | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books – 3/7/2014.

Russia blocks internet sites of Putin critics – Courant.com (today).

Russian Aggression

Russian troops gather at Ukraine border – World – The Boston Globe (today); Russian troops gathering at Ukraine border for exercises as standoff continues – The Washington Post; Russia might halt nuclear inspections | Concord Monitor; Ukraine: Russia Fired On Plane Over Crimea.

Source: Ukraine: Russia Fired On Plane Over Crimea (today): “Kyiv Post’s Christopher Miller tweeted this video that allegedly shows a pro-Russian group attacking pro-Ukrainian groups in Donetsk today”.

Related: Ukraine: deadly clashes in Donetsk | euronews, world news; Violent clashes in Donetsk between Ukrainians and pro-Russian groups as Moscow moves thousands of troops to border | Mail Online.

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President Obama’s Bilateral Meeting with Prime Minister Yatsenyuk of Ukraine – YouTube – 3/12/2014.

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Israel – Iran – Shipment Intercepted – Context Enlarged

10 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Politics, Regions, Russia, Syria

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Iran’s Intercepted Weapons Shipment Unloaded in Israel – YouTube – 3/9/2014.

Related: Who is the elite Iranian force behind arms transfers? – Israel News, Ynetnews – 3/7/2014.

* * *

Bill of lading: 40 M-302 rockets, 180 mortar shells, 400,000 7.62 (NATO) rounds.

Iran’s Weapons Shipment Safely in Israel’s Hands • IDF Blog | The Official Blog of the Israel Defense Forces – 3/9/2014.

Related: #IranFail: Iran’s History of Unsuccessful Weapons Smuggling – 3/5/2014.

* * *

On one hand, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani continues to engage the international community in a diplomatic process over Tehran’s nuclear program. He has achieved many successes in a charm offensive designed to rebrand his country as a reasonable and more moderate international player.

Simultaneously, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and its overseas special operation unit, the Quds Force, are strengthening, financing, and arming terrorist organizations all over the Middle East.

Iran’s Two-faced Regime Exposed Again, but is Anyone Paying Attention? (Gatestone)

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Iran, at a glance, has been sewing conflict around the middle east, building its own energy industry, establishing itself as a nuclear power — well, no one has yet stalled that ambition or dampened the regime’s enthusiasm for achieving it — and it illustrates its efforts in blood, or else why release Hezbollah to defend and sustain the brutality of the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad?  Against that sweeping influence in regional payola and arms shipments, Israel’s recent interdiction of arms intended for Gaza provides but a glimpse of Ayatollah Khamenei’s greater ambitions as the middle east’s greatest Lord of War.

Additional Reference

Israel to show long-range rockets from ‘Iran arms ship’ – Daily News Egypt

Israel says confiscated rockets had 100-mile range | Fox News

Blog: Giving peace a chance the Iranian way

‘Rows of Iranian rockets’ said found on seized ship | The Times of Israel – 3/9/2014.

Iranian influence, Iraq: US, Iranian influence evolves in Iraq – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 11/28/2013; Ten years after Iraq war began, Iran reaps the gains – Los Angeles Times – 3/28/2013.

Iranian influence, Lebanon: Iran Gloats over Ashes of American Influence « Commentary Magazine – 1/3/2014; Iran Uses Lebanese to Project Its Regional Power | Foundation for Defense of Democracies – 4/11/2013.

Iranian influence, Syria: Iranian Strategy in Syria | Institute for the Study of War – May 2013; Will Iran Use its Political Influence in Syria to Halt the Violence? | Majid Rafizadeh – 1/25/2014; Iran, Syria: Smuggling Weapons to Gain Influence in the West Bank | Stratfor – 8/9/2013; It’s Iran, Stupid – Foreign Policy – 2/12/2014.

Nuclear Deal Only Strengthens Iran As Regional Power | Anav Silverman – 11/25/2013.

Iran nuclear deal may be start of new era in Persian Gulf – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 12/1/2013.

Iran’s Flourishing Regional Influence | Science & Diplomacy – 7/15/2013.

Iran Rallies To Salvage Iraq’s Al Maliki Government – 6/4/2012; Iran opposition charges Iraq’s Al Maliki allowing open attacks on Camp Liberty | World Tribune – 2/2/2014: “LONDON ― Iraq has been accused of giving the Teheran regime a free hand to attack the exiled Iranian opposition. / The National Council of Resistance of Iran said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki was allowing Iran to strike the exiled opposition community around Baghdad.” —>

Iraq – 26.12.2013 Missile attack on Iranian dissident Camp Liberty – YouTube – 12/27/2013:

At 21:15 local time Iraq, on December 26, 2013, Camp Liberty was targeted by dozens of missiles of different types. In the early hours 3 members of the Iranian resistance were slain and more than 50 were reported injured, some in critical condition.

This is the fourth missile attack on Iranian dissidents in Camp Liberty (Iraq) in 2013, while the Iraqi government has not yet delivered the bodies of those massacred during the September 1, 2013 attack on Camp Ashraf, to Liberty residents for burial.

While American President Barrak Obama gives diplomacy and peace a chance over Iran’s developing nuclear weapons building potential, Ayatollah Khamenei’s efforts to produce influence and obtain it throughout the region has been also developing unobstructed.  With that in mind, Israel’s interception of a lone arms shipment doubtless intended to arm Hamas for the destruction of the Jewish-majority state represents but a small interruption in the Ayatollah’s efforts to turn a large wheel, a wheel that, in fact, has turned.

Related: The Troika: Putin, Khamenei and Assad | Michael Ledeen – 9/11/2013; Ayatollah Khamenei and Vladimir Putin – The Daily Beast – 9/26/2011.

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