Stop Coddling Putin (Time to wake up America)

In the autumn of 1997, a group of leading Republicans in Congress published a document analyzing Russian internal and external policy and directly appealing to the Clinton administration to "Stop coddling Yeltsin!" In particular, they stressed that "the ruling class in Russia is composed of ‘regular criminals,’ criminalized businessmen and criminalized officials." Now, evidently, it is time to ask the current administration to "Stop coddling Putin!"

The "internal reasons" are the same as in 1997; in addition, Russia has been transformed into a country controlled by the FSB/KGB – i.e., mafia of mafias. However, "foreign policy factors" are now incomparably greater.

Beginning in September 2001, Vladimir Putin has played "America’s ally" – at least for those in American political and business circles who are inclined to self-delusion and look at Russia through rose-colored glasses.

However, now again we see that Moscow has returned to its old ways. The author proposes two major reasons for this return:

In the beginning of June, Putin twice held talks with Jiang Zemin, in Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan) and Petersburg; almost simultaneously, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov visited China. In August, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov held very important negotiations in Beijing with Chinese supreme leaders. This resulted in significant upgrading of the Chinese-Russian alliance and – naturally – in the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations.

The dramatic rise of oil prices, in April-September 2002, gave Kremlin new chances for survival. Instantly, the behavior of Moscow became – in the typical New Russian manner – extremely impudent. More concretely:

1) Russia greatly expanded military supplies to China; in January-August 2002, the two countries concluded weapons supply contracts – including the most advanced missile destroyers, diesel-electric submarines, SU-30 fighters, air-defense missile systems and military helicopters – for an estimated $7 billion. This figure doesn’t include new agreements for the development of a new generation of space, aircraft and nuclear technology.

Without a doubt, these new contracts could have, as soon as 2005-2006, very bad consequences for Taiwan, Japan and U.S. troops stationed in East Asia and the Western Pacific.

2) At the end of July and the beginning of August, Russia and Iran reached an agreement prescribing (a) rapid finalization of the construction of Iran’s first nuclear station in Bushehr, (b) construction of six more nuclear reactors, with very heavy assistance from the Russian Ministry of Nuclear Energy (Minatom), in Iran.

According to Western experts, this "peaceful cooperation" greatly facilitates development of Iran’s program of nuclear weapons. The Kremlin and Minatom ignored the protests of the U.S. administration.

3) In mid-August, Moscow and Baghdad reached preliminary agreement on unprecedented large-scale economic cooperation – about $40 billion. After the agreement, Moscow took a hard line, adamantly opposing any military action against Iraq.

On Sept. 15-21, President Bush called Putin several times and held talks in the White House with "two Ivanovs" (Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov) soliciting them for support against Iraq, with no results. Mildly speaking, this was very unpleasant.

4) During August and the first half of September, Russia’s Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry made a series of tough anti-Georgian statements, using as a pretext "the presence of Chechen terrorists in the Pankisi Gorge" (a small valley in Georgia bordering Russia). In the beginning of September, Russian bombers made a strike in Georgian territory.

And on Sept. 11, Putin himself threatened Georgia with a heavy military strike if the Georgian government didn’t meet Russia’s demands. Again, Washington protested, again with no results.

On Sept. 16, after five years of negotiations, British Petroleum and other prominent Western companies started construction of an oil pipeline from Baku (capital of Azerbaijan) to Ceihan (a seaport on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey). When this project is finished in 2006, a large flow of oil will go from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, bypassing Russia, to the world market.

This is absolutely unacceptable to Moscow, which intends to control – directly or indirectly – the huge hydrocarbon resources of the Caspian basin and all of Central Asia. That’s why Moscow intends to strike Georgia, completely destabilizing the situation in this troubled republic, and undermine the Baku-Ceihan project.

In addition, the Kremlin continues to support, to the maximum degree possible, all the anti-American regimes and movements around the world – in North Korea, Palestine, Venezuela, etc.

Let’s look at the major goals of the Putin regime, which are now more evident than ever.

1) Keep oil prices, both short- and mid-term, at the present high level or even increase them above $30 per barrel.

Generally, that’s why Russia is against any military action against Iraq: If Saddam were "out," the situation in the Middle East would become more stable and world oil prices would return to $20-25 per barrel. This is unacceptable to Moscow!

This also explains the "neutral" (de facto supporting Arafat and Palestinian extremists) position of Moscow in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This conflict also inflates world oil prices.

One could counter that Russia has increased its oil exports, thus improving the world oil balance, and recently even sent several hundred thousand tons of oil directly to the U.S.

But Iraq sends, also directly to the U.S., 15 million tons of oil annually. Does this mean anything?

2) Maximize export of weapons and dual technologies, including nuclear ones. These exports – to China, the "axis of evil" and other "countries of concern" – are measured in many billions of dollars. And the U.S. has to increase greatly its military and home-security expenses – just to properly respond to the new threats.

Every dollar of Russian export of weapon and dual technology results in several dollars of additional expenses for America!

3) In all ways, Moscow crosses the U.S. and its close allies. And this is not occasional. Gleb Pavlovsky and other Putin strategists don’t hide the fact that the Kremlin is interested in the geopolitical defeat of America, the diminishing of its global role and, as a result, the recovery of Russia’s "old glory," up to retaining the superpower status of the USSR. Who will dare deny this evident fact now?

There is a term in geopolitics: "ontological [basic] enemy." The ontological enemies of America are limited officially now to the "axis of evil." But what about the Putin regime?

1) It is necessary to recognize, as soon as possible, that Putin’s regime is no ally of America, and that the U.S. will get nothing except new troubles in this "alliance" with Putin. Let’s "get real” – enough of illusions!

2) America should prepare to respond in the toughest way possible if Putin attacks Georgia. This aggression, if it takes place, should result in the crushing defeat of Putin’s regime.

3) One could say, "This will help the Communist opposition in Russia." The recent events – the governor elections in the Krasnoyarsk region, the vote in the Russian Duma over the Referendum law, etc. – show that Communist and nationalist opposition in Russia is extremely weak or even irrelevant. Moreover, this so-called opposition is merely a tool Putin uses to scare the West and to get new financial and political concessions from Western countries.

However, there IS a real opposition to Moscow – in Russia’s peripheral regions. And this opposition should eventually become an object of great interest and attention.

Dr. Alexandr V. Nemets is co-author of "Chinese-Russian Military Relations, Fate of Taiwan and New Geopolitics."

http://www.newsmax.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/9/26/152013.shtml

Might also want to check out the following NRO article by Ion Pacepa, the highest ranking Soviet Bloc defector to ever defect to the West. Here is what Pacepa has to say about Putin:

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September 20, 2004

No Peter the Great

Vladimir Putin is in the Andropov mold.

By Ion Mihai Pacepa

Vladimir Putin looks more and more like a heavy-handed imitation of Yuri Andropov — does anyone still remember him? Andropov was that other KGB chairman who rose all the way up to the Kremlin throne, and who was also once my de facto boss. Considering that Putin has inherited upwards of 6,000 suspected strategic nuclear weapons, this is frightening news.

Former KGB officers are now running Russia's government, just as they did during Andropov's reign, and the Kremlin's image — another Andropov specialty — continues to be more important than people's real lives in that still-inscrutable country. The government's recent catastrophic Beslan operation was a reenactment of the effort to "rescue" 2,000 people from Moscow's Dubrovka Theater, where the "new" KGB flooded the hall with fentanyl gas and caused the death of 129 hostages. No wonder Putin ordered Andropov's statue — which had been removed after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 — reinstalled at the Lubyanka.

In the West, if Andropov is remembered at all, it is for his brutal suppression of political dissidence at home and for his role in planning the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. By contrast, the leaders of the former Warsaw Pact intelligence community, when I was one of them, looked up to Andropov as the man who substituted the KGB for the Communist party in governing the Soviet Union, and who was the godfather of Russia's new era of deception operations aimed at improving the badly damaged image of Soviet rulers in the West.

In early 2000, President Putin divided Russia into seven "super" districts, each headed by a "presidential representative," and he gave five of these seven new posts to former KGB officers. Soon, his KGB colleagues occupied nearly 50 percent of the top government positions in Moscow. In a brief interview with Ted Koppel on Nightline, Putin admitted that he had stuffed the Kremlin with former KGB officers, but he said it was because he wanted to root out graft. "I have known them for many years and I trust them. It has nothing to do with ideology. It's simply a matter of their professional qualities and personal relationship."

THE NATIONAL POLITICAL PASTIME In reality, it's an old Russian tradition to fill the most important governmental positions with undercover intelligence officers. The czarist Okhrana security service planted its agents everywhere: in the central and local government, and in political parties, labor unions, churches, and newspapers. Until 1913, Pravda itself was edited by one of them, Roman Malinovsky, who rose to become Lenin's deputy for Russia and the chairman of the Bolshevik faction in the Duma.

Andropov Sovietized that Russian tradition and extended its application nationwide. It was something similar to militarizing the government in wartime, but it was accomplished by the KGB. In 1972, when he launched this new offensive, KGB Chairman Andropov told me that this would help eliminate the current plague of theft and bureaucratic chaos and would combat the growing sympathy for American jazz, films, and blue jeans obsessing the younger Soviet generation. Andropov's new undercover officers were secretly remunerated with tax-free salary supplements and job promotions. In exchange, Andropov explained, they would secretly have to obey "our" military regulations, practice "our" military discipline and carry out "our" tasks, if they wanted to keep their jobs. Of course, the KGB had long been using diplomatic cover slots for its officers assigned abroad, but Andropov's new approach was designed to influence the Soviet Union itself.

The lines separating the leadership of the country from the intelligence apparatus had blurred in the Soviet satellites as well. After I was granted political asylum in the United States in July 1978, the Western media reported that my defection had unleashed the greatest political purge in the history of Communist Romania. Ceausescu had demoted politburo members, fired one-third of his cabinet, and replaced ambassadors. All were undercover intelligence officers whose military documents and pay vouchers I had regularly signed off on.

THE MAKING OF A DICTATOR General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, the Soviet gauleiter of Romania who rose to head the Soviet foreign intelligence service for an unprecedented 15 years, used to predict to me that KGB Chairman Andropov would soon have the whole Soviet bloc in his vest pocket, and that he would surely end up in the Kremlin. Andropov would have to wait ten years until Brezhnev died, but on November 12, 1982, he did take up the country's reins. Once settled in the Kremlin, Andropov surrounded himself with KGB officers, who immediately went on a propaganda offensive to introduce him to the West as a "moderate" Communist and a sensitive, warm, Western-oriented man who allegedly enjoyed an occasional drink of Scotch, liked to read English novels, and loved listening to American jazz and the music of Beethoven. In actual fact, Andropov did not drink, as he was already terminally ill from a kidney disorder, and the rest of the portrayal was equally false.

In 1999, when Putin became prime minister, he also surrounded himself with KGB officers, who began describing him as a "Europeanized" leader — capitalizing, ironically, on the fact that he had been a KGB spy abroad. Yet Putin's only foreign experience had been in East Germany, on Moscow's side of the Berlin Wall. Soon after that I visited the Stasi headquarters in Leipzig and Dresden to see where Putin had spent his "Europeanizing" years. Local representatives of the Gauck Commission — a special post-Communism German panel researching the Stasi files — said that the "Soviet-German 'friendship house'" Putin headed for six years was actually a KGB front with operational offices at the Leipzig and Dresden Stasi headquarters. Putin's real task was to recruit East German engineers as KGB agents and send them to the West to steal American technologies.

I visited those offices and found that they looked just like the offices of my own midlevel case officers in regional Securitate directorates in Romania. Yet Moscow claims Putin had held an important job in East Germany and was decorated by the East German government. The Gauck Commission confirmed that Putin was decorated in 1988 "for his KGB work in the East German cities of Dresden and Leipzig." According to the West German magazine Der Spiegel, he received a bronze medal from the East German Stasi as a "typical representative of second-rank agents." There, in those prison-like buildings, cut off even from real East German life by Stasi guards with machine guns and police dogs, Lieutenant Colonel Putin could not possibly have become the modern-day, Western-oriented Peter the Great that the Kremlin's propaganda machine is so energetically spinning.

Indeed, on December 20, 1999, Russia's newly appointed prime minister visited the Lubyanka to deliver a speech on this "memorable day," commemorating Lenin's founding of the first Soviet political police, the Cheka. "Several years ago we fell prey to the illusion that we have no enemies," Putin told a meeting of top security officials. "We have paid dearly for this. Russia has its own national interests, and we have to defend them." The following day, December 21, 1999, another "memorable day" in Soviet history — Stalin's 120th birthday — Putin organized a closed-door reception in his Kremlin office reported as being for the politicians who had won seats in the Duma. There he raised a glass to good old Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin, meaning "man of steel," was the dictator's nom de guerre).

Days later, in a 14-page article entitled "Russia on the Threshold of a New Millennium," Putin defined Russia's new "democratic" future: "The state must be where and as needed; freedom must be where and as required." The Chechens' effort to regain their independence was mere "terrorism," and he pledged to eradicate it: "We'll get them anywhere — if we find terrorists sitting in the outhouse, then we will piss on them there. The matter is settled." It is not.

SCAPEGOATING AND CONSOLIDATING On September 9, 2004, Chechen nationalists announced a $20 million prize on the head of the "war criminal" Vladimir Putin, whom they accuse of "murdering hundreds of thousands of peaceful civilians on the territory of Chechnya, including tens of thousands of children."

For his part, President Putin tried to divert the outrage over the horrific Breslan catastrophe away from his KGB colleagues who had caused it, and to direct public anger toward the KGB's archenemy, the U.S. Citing meetings of mid-level U.S. officials with Chechen leaders, Putin accused Washington of having a double standard when dealing with terrorism. "Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?" Putin told reporters in Moscow.

Then Putin blamed the collapse of the Soviet Union for what he called a "full scale" terrorist war against Russia and started taking Soviet-style steps to strengthen the Kremlin's power. On September 13, he announced measures to eliminate the election of the country's governors, who should now be appointed by the Kremlin, and to allow only "certified" people — that is, former KGB officers — to run for the parliament.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, its people had a unique opportunity to cast out their political police, a peculiarly Russian instrument of power that has for centuries isolated their country from the real world and in the end left them ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of modern society. Unfortunately, up until then most Russians had never owned property, had never experienced a free-market economy, and had never made decisions for themselves. Under Communism they were taught to despise Western democracy and everything they believed to be connected with capitalism, e.g., free enterprise, decision-making, hard work, risk-taking, and social inequality. Moreover, the Russians had also had minimal experience with real political parties, since their country has been a police state since the 16th century. To them, it seemed easier to continue the tradition of the political police state than to take the risk of starting everything anew.

But the times have changed dramatically. My native country, which borders Russia, is a good example. At first, Romania's post-Communism rulers, for whom managing the country with the help of the political police was the only form of government they had ever known, bent over backwards to preserve the KGB-created Securitate, a criminal organization that became the symbol of Communist tyranny in the West. Article 27 of Romania's 1990 law for organizing the new intelligence services stated that only former Securitate officers "who have been found guilty of crimes against fundamental human rights and against freedom" could not be employed in the "new" intelligence services. In other words, only Ceausescu would not have been eligible for employment there. Today, Romania still has the same president as in 1990, but his country is now a member of NATO and is helping the U.S. to rid the world of Cold War-style dictators and the terrorism they generated.

Russia can also break with its Communist past and join our fight against despots and terrorists. We can help them do it, but first we should have a clear understanding of what is now going on behind the veil of secrecy that still surrounds the Kremlin.

— Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former two-star general, is the highest-ranking intelligence officer to have defected from the Soviet bloc. His book Red Horizons has been republished in 27 countries.

TapTheSource/FearGodNotMen/GIJoel Propagadna

Propaganda	Truth
Putin is a communist	Putin has implemented a flat tax of 13%, got rid of the Sales tax, set the corporate tax at 24%, cut the VAT in half, cut 1/3rd off the payroll tax. He has cut back on government size (shrinking government). He has put up 20% of Russian land for sale, the government is in the process of divesting of the remainder of its shares in various companies. There has been judicial reform to a sitting jury from a triumpherate of judges. There has also been a total reform of the banking center, in order to make it transparent.
Russia and China are allied to destroy the US	Russia has recently passed up China for an oil export route and choosen instead Japan. China had to turn to Iran. Russia is rearming in Siberia, while she arms India with over 400 new tanks, a wing of new aircraft, two nuclear submarines and an aircraft carrier to intercept Chinese shipping. Russia has armed S.Korea with T-90s, armed Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Khazakstan. Russia has attempted (by itself and through the US) to arm Taiwan also. The majority of weapons sold to China are aimed at the US navy, to which China will not be able to catch up for at least another generation.
Russia trains with China to destroy the US/West	This year alone, Russia has had joint manuevers with Japan & S.Korea and then again with the US and UK off the Chinese Coast.
There is a Putin pandering mafia after me.	There is a dedicated group of Freepers who are out to expose this propagandist's lies and distortions, for which he has already been banned twice.
If you are against me you must be a (take your choice) A. communist, B. Putin lover, C. Russian Orthodox, D. Russian, E. Delusional, F. All of the Above	G. None of the Above. You must be a lover of truth and a hater of yellow journalism, empty conspiracy theories and plain propaganda.
The FSB/Russians are behind all the terrorism, including the theater and Beslan.	Only someone blind or shilling for Islam would on a continuous basis shift blame away from the terrorists and onto the victims.
Russia is giving Iran nukes.	Wrong. Russia is providing a civilian nuclear reactor with a contract to return spent rods. Do most of us agree with this? No, we are against this. Is this nuclear weapons technology? No. Our allie Pakistan with the assistance of our Most Valued Trading partner China are giving Iran missile and bomb technology.
Russia, and Putin in particular, hate Israel and wish to destroy it.	Wrong. Russia is Israel's second closest allie and trading partner and provides Israel with most of its oil and sells it weapons technology.
Putin is an Atheist, a hater of Christ.	Putin was baptized as a child, a regular church goer and has proven his faith on numerous occassions.
Russia supports Islamic terrorism.	Wrong. The Soviet Union supported socialist arab revolutionaries/terrorists like the Palistinian People's Liberation Front. Modern day Russia does not support these groups. Our allie Saudi Arabia is the number one backer of all major islamic groups.
Putin is a dictator	Putin was popularly elected with over 70% of the vote, a mandate. He functions within a constitution. True parlament is dominated by pro-Putin right wing parties, also elected freely. The various right parties received over 83% of the vote.
Putin hates Bush.	Putin has been Bush's loudest cheerleader, louder and in front of Sharon, Blair or Berlusconi
Putin is moving to grab power through selecting governors.	The governors still have to pass the local Oblast's parliment's review (that's province). Further, England, Italy and France all have the same systems.
Robert W. Lee another TapTheSource writers are credible.	Hardly, most like Mr. Lee, belong to the John Birch society, an organization steeped in conspiracy theories.
Yeltsin's declaration of open borders is a hollow one for Soviet citizens, who still cannot leave their country. Even travel outside the Soviet Union is heavily restricted, regardless of the Soviet republic	Typical propaganda leveled by TapTheSource or his articles. Anyone without a criminal warrent can leave at will, so long as the recieving nation will issue a Visa.
The Secret Soviets are still in charge and everything is part of their plan.	Lets take this lunacy to its full extent: The Soviets in their diabolic mysterious master plan allowed the Warsaw pact to collapse, the countries to open up and half of them to join NATO (I guess to corrupt NATO from within, regardless that it is those new NATO members that support America now and most of old NaTO that is against America, lets ignore that fact). They allowed the Soviet Union itself to fall apart, some of which is also now part of NATO. They allowed the military to degrade, trade secrets to be sold or stolen, Chinese immegrants to come in mass into southern Siberia. Most of their bases to shut down. The economy to dive and only grow again under Capitalism freer then America's. They further allowed the young to not even know who Lenin was, for islamics (who are all pawns of the Soviets, you see) to attack Russia on a daily basis. All this so that once America was the only apparent supper power, had its military in 120+ nations they could do what? Spring their surprise offensive? Materialize the great invasion army from outer space or outer Mongolia? Or marry enough American men to convert them (think body snatchers) into 5th Columnists and take over the US from inside? (of course that more people then ever voted Republican is also part of their master and evil plan). As a matter of fact, everything that happens that makes this theory look ludicrous for the past 15 years, well that's just part of the brilliance of their master plan. Oh and did we mention that they were obviously able to make Reagon, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr. into a bunch of idiots who could not see into their plan. So either this is all BS, or every American expert in the government and politician is an idiot and we as a nation are a bunch of idiots (except for the members of the John Birth Society, the only masters of the illuminate able to see this grand Jewish .. erg .. Russian conspiracy.
Russia is a dirt poor country.	Russia ranks, according to the CIA World FactBook GDP: purchasing power parity - $1.282 trillion (2003 est.), which places it just behind (now ahead) of Italy, the world's 7th largest economy. Explaining Purchasing Power Parity
Anna Politkovskaya is a reputable Russian journalist who is fighting Putin's facism.	Hardly. Anna Politkovskaya is an opportunist and a leftist. Having become a "political" refugee in the early 1990s, she now has FRENCH citizenship, writes for the socialist La Monde and the socialist Novaye Gazeta. She has staged several of her own "assassination" attempts to better her street credits while meeting constantly with Chechin and Al Quida terrorists and writing gushing love stories of them. Further, anyone who thinks that just because she hates Putin she is pro Bush, you couldn't be more wrong. She is in league with the devil incarnate, Soros, and hates Bush as much. A leftist is a leftist, but judge for yourself and read her views of Bush and the CONSERVATIVES of AMERICA. COWBOY FRIENDS (Praise for Moore)
Russia is a nation that only relies on oil.	A total lie, mostly spread by Wahhabi islamic Saudi Arabia and various NeoCons who favor US investment to Facist (and pro-Islamic) China. Read here about the state of the Russian economy that is now returning as a major industrial and IT power. Russia competes directly with India on IT and has had manufacturing climbing at an incredible rate. Financ e Ministry to work on debt payment schedule Budget surplus higher than planned Person al incomes rise in Russia Most state enterprises to be privatized by 2007 Genera l Electric plans to invest $200m in Russia Person al incomes up in September Data on industrial production posted Russia 's foreign trade reported Gov ?t considering airfield privatizations Russia posts increase in industrial production Russia 's foreign debt reaches six year low Russia ?s debt to drop to 23% of GDP Russia leads in GDP growth Export s to play more important role in Russian economy

This is an ever growing list to bring the truth forward and fight the lies of these propagandists and Allah cheerleaders.

Contrary to the narrow and deceitful lies stated by someone here who claims to be an American married to a Russian, I wanted to state a position that some of you probably were not aware of. Beyond the obvious marginalized groups such as the John Birch Society, various NWO-phobic conspiracy mongers, as well as more radical groups such as various anti Semite groups and other far quarters, there is a small but growing collection of individuals (not even really an organized group) who simply want the lessons of history to be better applied to our dealings with other major great powers. Some of us are Jews, some are Christians and some are from various other backgrounds. We are disturbed with the rapidity with which Western business interests forged into countries claimed to be free of Communism as well as into still Communist ones such as the PRC. We are concerned that in the subsequent rush, both business interests and politicians may have been pushed into conflicts of interest which may cloud their judgment of geopolitical risks.

Also, we are quite concerned regarding the draw down of military capability and troop strength which has happened since the late 1980s. We are concerned about the current paradigm of a "2 military regional contingency" which clearly opens the door to a number of scenarios which could cause harm to not only the USA, but to Western Civilization in general.

We do acknowledge and even attempt to reduce, the overly friendly relations between certain quarters of the Washington establishment and Saudi Arabia. That having been written, we also do not want to stupidly rationalize or even wilfully ignore the military and other aid rendered unto nations such as Iran, Syria, Laos, the PRC, the DPRK, Cuba and the like by the regime in Moscow. Similarly, we call upon our leaders to also challenge similar unethical acts by the PRC, by Pakistan, by France, Germany and others.

We do realize that amongst the Chechens, there are both native and foreign elements who constitute a bona fide mennace not only to Russia, but to their own people, and eventually, beyond. However, we also note with interest the degree to which Putin's pre presidential successes owed to his exploitation of that situation for political gain, a practice which continues today.

And finally, we are gravely concerned about a new mennace threatening the USA, of which Islamic terror cells are a part, namely, the new "pan" movements. Today, in the USA, and other countries such as the UK, Canada and elsewhere, in addition to the well known pan Islamist movement there are also active and growing pan Sinic, pan Slavic and other pan movements. As anyone who had read Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" can attest, such movements merit our attention and, possibly, intervention.

The reactions of some, who I suspect, may be either in, or sympathetic to, pan movements, who post here at Free Republic, are telling. They are truly threatened by some of what gets discussed here. Good. For I will write this. I subscribe, 100%, to what George Washington wrote regarding the dangers of foreign influence on successful republican government. And I am sworn to uphold and protect the USA and our Constitution. Furthermore, I swear to do all in my power, to stop all pan movements in their tracks. That's a promise.

Never again.

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