Moscow –

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

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

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

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/

KGB-style “Active Measures” often target new generations who have little intellectual defense or means for recognizing hip propaganda.

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

In the Soviet Era, many “peace movement” organizations distanced themselves from the Communist Party (Soviet) as they witness the brutality of political repression in the several of the Soviet satellite states whose politics had brought them around to liberation from the Soviet system.

Today’s ultra-nationalist and neo-imperial Moscow have made comprehension of the Kremlin a little more difficult. In Orwellian _Animal Farm_ fashion, the banner of the state has switched to “State Capitalism” and the FSB/KGB, Putin, and the Oligarchs appear to be having a helluva good time! 🙂

Still, with Moscow’s earlier KGB engineering of Yasser Arafat and the PLO more and more known beyond the wonky circles of “Kremlin watchers”, the model for elite kleptocracy driven by Moscow, which is deeply invested in medieval political absolutism and totalitarian control, has been coming into popular view.

Who destroyed Syria by barrel bombing, chemical attacks, relentless and sadistic assaults (http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/22/world/meast/syria-snipers-pregnant-women/) on noncombatants?

Moscow’s behavior has not been limited to middle east conflicts. Here’s a borrowing from Ukraine’s history of Russian oppression:

http://www.holodomorct.org/

The absence of conscience and empathy in leadership needs protesting worldwide.

The old politics in which the apparent “liberator” turns out the oppressor — and gets away with a lot of loot for doing it — needs a complete historic reexamination and overhaul.

Take a lesson from the Somali experience with the Soviet government in the Ogaden:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03pk9c1

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While BackChannels delivers the light version of history — much of what is needed is online — it wonders how to further wean from the Soviet Era experience the many remaining Left-Far Left organizations struggling to update their missions in the long shadow cast by the dissolving of the Soviet Union a little more than 25 years ago.

From the outset, BackChannels has invested itself in liberal humanist politics — look to the left of this copy and down the sidebar: the values promoted by this nonpartisan blog seem to the editor to place the humanity of humanity first and foremost in political thought and to be congruent with the advice suggested in the above invention From the Awesome Conversation: “The absence of conscience and empathy in leadership needs protesting worldwide.”

If you know how and when the Soviet KGB groomed Yasser Arafat for his role as leader of The Palestinians — Jordanian refugees in 1948 — can you still swallow the intellectual poison that has been the “alternative narrative” of the same?

Think about it.

Think about the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars amassed by Arafat and Abbas (both of whom have had KGB histories) while the Palestinians have been showcased for sympathy?

Apply the same to Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal, both of them billionaires.

What if the newest of Far Left fist-raising acolytes had the choice between parroting the claims and narratives programmed within his new social climate and that of independently questing and reading for the truth, would he do choose to balance the former with the latter?

We’re going to find out.

Not only are online resources for research extraordinary today, but obtaining books relevant to the study of history and history and revolution, culture and cultural anthropology and psychology, and so on has never been less expensive!

For a quick pick-up on the previous century’s Cold War and related history, BackChannels recommends all of the volumes listed in “The Russian Section” of its library.

For insight into Soviet-style manipulation, BackChannels has a post listing works by KGB defector Ion Mihai Pacepa: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/28/a-short-page-referencing-works-by-or-associated-with-ion-mihai-pacepa/

Where the adventurous and social rewards associated with “The Movement” — there are so many of them! — prove rewarding, may the reader of this blog consider also the responsibility of being himself an autonomous, independent, informed, and critically reasoning actor in his own political life.

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