Putin Declares War by J. R. Nyquist Sept 9, 2004
Last week, in the Russian town of Beslan, nameless terrorists killed hundreds of children and adults. On Saturday Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a declaration of war, calling for his country’s mobilization. Grim before the television cameras, Putin blamed the breakup of that “vast great state,” the Soviet Union, for Russia’s sorry condition. “Despite all the difficulties,” said Putin, “we have managed to preserve the core of the colossus that was the Soviet Union.” And that core has come under attack. “Someone” wants to destroy what remains of the USSR. “We showed weakness,” Putin explained, “and the weak are trampled upon.”
There are many curious aspects to the Beslan massacre. In Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov noted the Muslim world’s “lack of interest” in the North Caucasus. So what was the Beslan terror spree about? According to Kasparov, Putin’s speech was “uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has lived under Soviet rule.”
As it stands today, the Russian security services control the Russian government. They control the “former” Soviet republics (even where there is a pretense of independence). They oversee the army districts of the “former” Soviet Union. They direct and coordinate organized crime. They continue to work with overseas communist parties, including the Chinese Communist Party. But there is more, much more, to this emerging picture. According to former FSB Lt. Col. Alexander Litvinenko, Russian state security regularly uses terrorism against the Russian people. This claim may sound outrageous to the uninformed, but Moscow built the infrastructure of global terrorism. Moscow trained and inspired a generation of terrorists.
Last week Litvinenko asked a question and provided an answer: “Who is the chief of the Islambuli Brigades who took credit for recent terrorist attacks in Russia? This chief is a high-ranking KGB officer named Mohammed al-Islambuli. He and his brother Khaled assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. And now that organization is named in honor of Khaled. To tell the truth, they are mafia – they trade drugs and weapons in Russia.”
In 2002 Litvinenko wrote a book on the FSB/KGB’s involvement with organized crime and terrorism. The book’s English title is Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within. The book documents “acts of terror, abductions and contract killings organized by the Federal Security Services of the Russian Federation.” Former KGB structures have used crime and terrorism to establish control over Russia’s economy and government. Litvinenko wrote, “To this must be added the corresponding line in foreign policy: a move towards Russia’s political isolation through confrontation with the West; militarization of the Russian economy; the beginning of a new arms race; an increase in the smuggling and sale of Russian weapons and military technologies to governments hostile to the developed nations of the world; the use of FSB channels for the smuggling of narcotics under the control and protection of the FSB….”
The Kremlin has played the Beslan massacre like classic provocation. “Some want to cut a juicy morsel from us,” explained Putin, referring to the oil-rich Caucasus region. “Others are helping them. They are helping because they believe that, as one of the world’s major nuclear powers, Russia still poses a threat to them, and therefore this threat must be removed. And terrorism, of course, is only a tool for achieving these goals.” In other words, “someone” wants to smash the Russian federation. They want to get hold of Russia’s oil. They want to break the back of the Russian state. They want to deprive Russia of its nuclear arsenal because it “still” threatens them. “This is a challenge to the whole of Russia,” Putin warned, “to the whole of our people. This is an attack on our country.” The plan is to “intimidate” Russia with “inhuman cruelty,” to “paralyze our will and demoralize our society.” The Russian president added: “It would appear that we have a choice of resisting them or agreeing to their claims, surrendering or allowing them to destroy and split Russia….”
The choice is clear. Destroy or be destroyed, kill or be killed. “One cannot fail to see the obvious,” said Putin. “We are not just dealing with separate actions aimed at frightening us, or separate terrorist sorties. We are dealing with direct intervention by way of terrorism against Russia, with total, cruel and full-scale war in which our compatriots die again and again.” The best course of action, explained Putin, is the “mobilization of the country in the face of a common danger.” The Russian people must unite. “Fellow countrymen,” he warned, “the aim of those who sent the bandits to carry out this horrific crime was to divide our people, to frighten Russia’s citizenry, to unleash a fratricidal bloodbath in the North Caucasus.” In response to this conspiracy the Russian president promised “measures to strengthen the unity of the country.” He promised to “create a new system for … controlling the situation in the North Caucasus.” According to Putin, “This is the only way for us to defeat the enemy.”
And who is this mysterious enemy that seeks to frighten and split Russia? Here is a hint: It is the same old enemy as before – the enemy of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. And was the Beslan massacre a provocation? Here is another hint: the FSB was previously known as the KGB. Provocation was the KGB’s specialty. There is a great deal of evidence and testimony that President Putin came to power through FSB-sponsored terrorism. Russian state security provoked the Second Chechen War. Putin’s agents planted the bombs that leveled Russian apartment buildings in 1999. Furthermore, Chechen terrorists who take hostages have been publicly identified as Kremlin agents.
On Wednesday the Washington Times ran a story titled “Putin rips Washington’s calls for diplomacy with Chechens,” by Nicholas Kralev. According to this article, Putin has accused the United States of “undermining” Russia’s war on terrorism. Putin also accuses American officials of meeting with Chechen leaders. Even more blameworthy (from Putin’s standpoint), the United States granted political asylum to Ilyas Akhmadov, a Chechen rebel leader and foreign minister. The Kremlin uses this and other facts to show that Washington supports Chechen terrorism; that Washington seeks to demoralize and split Russia through “a fratricidal bloodbath in the North Caucasus.”
Do not mistake this for “Russian paranoia.” What we are hearing and reading is calculated propaganda. Characteristically, the mass murderer accuses his intended victim of harboring identical intentions to his own. It effectively appeals to the willing dupes, useful idiots and fellow travelers of the anti-American left. At the same time it covers President Putin with a halo of innocence.
Russian policy has entered a new phase. President Putin’s declaration of war against an unnamed country, his mobilization of Russia, his call for unity, his nostalgia for the Soviet Union already characterizes this new phase. Russia’s policy is clearly anti-American and anti-capitalist. As former FSB Lt. Col. Litvinenko stated in his book, “The philistine argument that ‘it’s just not possible’ is merely an expression of the potential victim’s psychological inability to accept the worst.”
Welcome to the New Cold War. © 2004 Jeffrey R. Nyquist September 9, 2004
The True Origins of Terrorism: Interview with Dr. Joseph Douglass
By: Ryan Mauro
RM: What countries were the most involved in the creation of the current terrorist threat we face?
JD: The most important nation, the granddaddy of terrorism, is Russia. Russia adopted international terrorism as a strategic intelligence operation in 1955. It organized schools for terrorists, terrorist training camps, coordination conferences and much more.
Next to Russia is China. Although not so prominent, nevertheless China was one of the major actors on this stage. There is hardly a communist or former communist nation that was not involved. North Korea sponsored and was itself involved in terrorism. So were Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria, Poland and so forth.
The one that had the most important role in the Americas was Cuba. Cuba also hosted tri-continental terrorist coordination meetings and was a base for terrorist training camps. They have been a far more serious terrorist threat to the US than Iraq because of their terrorist expertise, large number of intelligence agents within the United States, and significant BW and CW expertise. They should be one of the prime suspects in the anthrax letters of October 2001.
RM: Why did the Soviets and their allies sponsor drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism?
JD: The three operated cooperatively and in a complementary fashion. They were all strategic intelligence operations, conceived in 1955-56 as part of the effort to modernize the world revolutionary movement. Organized crime was run mainly by the KGB; terrorism and drug trafficking was mainly managed out of the GRU. These operations were all coordinated and worked together.
The function of terrorism is to destabilize the country and drive a wedge between the people and the government. The function of organized crime was to corrupt and compromise the leadership and pro vide an important source of intelligence and influence. The function of drug trafficking is to corrupt the youth, decrease their long-term leadership, and weaken the future leaders of the country.
A fourth factor, which you neglected to mention, but was part of the same set of strategic intelligence operations, was deception, the purpose of which was to mislead people about the instigators and organizers of these activities, and blame the activities on problems internal within the culture of the country. And especially, as Jan Sejna said, "to prevent the spotlight of publicity from falling on our friends, the banks."
RM: Did the Soviets and their allies do anything to create or promote radical Islam?
JD: A major dimension of Soviet strategy was to infiltrate, turn, and use all religions. One of the easiest to penetrate was Islam because this religion is so similar to communism and its world view Within a religion, the idea was to turn the religion to support the Soviet strategy. Because a major thrust of its terrorism was run out of the Middle East -- I am not aware of any Arab terrorist operation that the Soviets were not involved in, if not founder of -- support of such terrorist activities would have been in support of Soviet policy and, as such, strongly anti-American and designed to isolate America from the rest of the world, especially Europe.
A main Soviet tactic was to recruit non-communist agents and send these agents to religious schools (seminaries) so that they would learn the religion from the ground up and be accepted into the religion for the long term. These people were both witting and unwitting agents with ideologies designed to support Russian strategy rather than Arab interests; or to manipulate Arab interests so they supported Soviet interests. The idea was to build a batch of instructors or teachers who would then dominate the teaching centers and schools, which are one of the main sources of terrorist recruitment.
The bottom line is that the Russians have been intimately involved in the corruption of the Islamic teaching centers and schools, through them and recruited clerics, as well as the radicalization of Islam and its anti-American hatred.
Finally, the success of the suicide bombers is quite likely not just a question of training and psychological brainwashing but actual mind-control using psychoactive drugs, as was also done on the Kamikaze pilots, Viet Cong, and others. Parallel activities in turning religions to Soviet interest, although not in the terrorist sense, can be seen in other religions as well.
RM: Did the Soviets do it directly or through rogue states like Iran, Iraq and Libya?
JD: First, as I understand Islam, the term radical is misleading. What we see is more appropriately fundamental Islam. That is, nothing that we see is inconsistent with the Islamic scriptures. This comes as a surprise to many people, what with our President describing Islam as a peaceful religion, focused on love and compassion. This image is nowhere to be found in the Islamic scriptures. A good treatment of the subject can be found at prophetofdoom.net, or in the book "Prophet of Doom." The web site has a mass of quotes and references.
Note that misleading the American public about an ideology is not new. Communism was misrepresented, as was the disintegration of the Soviet Union. As indicated in “The Black Book of Communism”, there was nothing but silence from academics, politicians, and the media on the crimes of Communism for eighty years, and that is still continuing. Respecting the Soviet use of surrogates has been a common practice.
Certainly, the Russians do it directly when the opportunity is right, or when they are not worried about disclosure, or do not want to trust the surrogate. In general, however, they have found it easier and more effective to use a surrogate, such as the Czechs or Germans in running operations and indigenous people where they do not want to show their faces, as in drug trafficking.
The reason surrogates works for the Russians is that people do not trust the Russians, but they do trust the Czechs and Germans, who are seen as victims. Hence, the Czechs or Germans, etc. make the contacts and at the appropriate time turn their information over to the Russians. The Czechs were very active in this respect in Egypt and Syria, where they had good contacts, and the Germans were very active in Iraq and Iran. The key question in planning the operation is which surrogate is the best to use and, in some, countries there are many options.
RM: Is there any evidence then that Russia is still using rogue states to do such dirty work?
JD: Is there any evidence they are not? It is inconceivable that they’re not still involved. One public indicator has been the presence of top-ranking Soviet advisors prior to, and during the First Gulf War, and up to, and during part of the most recent attack on Iraq. The continued Russian presence can also be seen in books such as "Bin Laden." What has been happening over the past decade is less obvious than before for two reasons.
First, the intelligence collection directed toward Russia, Eastern Europe, etc. was turned off in 1990-1992, because our attention has been focused elsewhere, and the Russians have increased their security to hide such activities. However, we also know that their foreign intelligence activities have increased and, that they’re not about to have just "walked away" from the activities of interest, which were, and remain, very valuable.
RM: How come there isn't evidence emerging that Russia is directly sponsoring terrorism itself or via rogue allies?
JD: How do you know there isn't? If there were, would you know it or would it be suppressed? There was, and still is, a major effort to suppress such intelligence, i.e., it is still politically incorrect to focus attention on the crimes of communism. There is also less information available for the reasons stated above.
RM: What do you make of the US "alliance" with the former East Bloc in the War on Terror?
JD: Total nonsense. The problem is that no information has been released that indicates what constitutes this "alliance" and what has been provided in cooperation of real significance. There was also a joint US-Russian team formed to find any information on missing American POWs in Russia. This was formed in 1992. The specific reason was the desire of our government to show it as an example of Russian cooperation.
The person who headed the Russian side, Volkogonov, was propagandized here as a “historian” and “good guy”. In reality, he was Yepishev's deputy for propaganda and disinformation for twenty years. Yepishev was one of the more sinister Soviet generals who headed the Main Political Administration. Volkogonov knew about the use of American POWs, as he told a consultant to the Foreign Relations Committee before the task force was formed but that he would be killed if he talked about it.
He headed the Soviet side, not in a spirit of cooperation, but to make certain we did not find anything. This is more likely than not, an indication of how cooperation in combating terrorism has also gone, but the US would not admit this because it would show how much a farce our pro-Russian policies are.
RM: Does the Soviet sponsorship of drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism hold any significance today and why?
JD: Tremendous significance. Organized crime and drug trafficking are regarded by professionals as even more important that terrorism, and a massive threat. When you recognize the size (revenues of over $3 trillion and capital assets in the $30 to $50 trillion range), it does not take much imagination to recognize this means the total corruption of financial, business, trade, politicians, law enforcement, justice, law, and intelligence. This was even laid out in a US interagency study published in unclassified form on the Internet in December 2000. Its title was International Crime Threat Assessment.
RM: Russia is a victim of terrorism, especially from Chechnya. How do you respond to those that say this makes them a perfect ally?
JD: Chechnya is also reported to be a region where terrorists continue to be trained. The Russians would not hesitate to kill or allow to-be killed hundreds of thousands of people to cover their own operations. The fact that they are a "victim" means absolutely nothing.
It is too good an "example" for precisely the reason you put forth. It is similar to the sudden drug problem Russia started talking about in 1988 when their role in drug trafficking started to surface. Most of the data in this sudden surge of publicity was shown not to have come from the mid-1980s but from the 1950s. The whole thing was contrived to create the impression that Russia was suffering just as the West was under attack and, thus, gain the sympathy of the West and pave the way for joint anti-drug trafficking efforts.
RM: Why is Russia still anti-American and trying to make an alliance to counter American power?
JD: As Gorbachev explained in his book, Peristroika, “We will never forsake our goals set by Lenin (i.e., global conquest)”. What we see being launched in 1989 is a new strategy to accomplish this same goal. Arbatov foretold the new strategy -- he explained it as follows: "We are going to do a terrible thing to you. We are going to take away your threat." My belief is that Russia will be anti-American until America has been undermined to the extent where, as Rowan Gaither explained in 1953, a comfortable Russia-US merger were possible.
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Joseph Douglass Jr., PhD (Cornell University, 1962), has 35 years experience in national security matters as a researcher, author, and frequent speaker. He is a recognized authority on U.S. and Soviet nuclear strategy, chemical and biological warfare, Communist decision-making, and Soviet strategic intelligence operations.
Over the past twenty years his work has focused on the international narcotics trafficking and the war on drugs, the leading role of Russian intelligence in international terrorism and organized crime, chemical and biological warfare agents for use in political and intelligence operations, US defense policy, and on the fate of missing American POWs, which is the subject of his most recent book Betrayed.
Dr. Douglass has worked in the AEC’s Sandia Laboratory, the Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Department of Defense and several national defense corporations. He has taught at Cornell University, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is a frequent speaker and author of over a hundred scholarly articles, op ed pieces and a dozen books, including Red Cocaine: The Drugging of America and, most recently, Betrayed: Missing American POWs. He is also the co-author of America The Vulnerable: The Threat of Chemical/Biological Warfare, Why the Soviet Union Violates Arms Control Treaties, CBW: The Poor Man's Atomic Bomb, and Soviet Strategy for Nuclear War.
