Did Putin plant the holiday jet bomb that killed 224 Russians? Ex-KGB agent claims...

Daily Mail ^ | 25 December 2015 | Andrew Malone

[annalex]

Pu is rebuilding the USSR under the guise of various pseudo-patriotic and pseudo-Christian slogans. If he wants to "hammer away at the Islamist caliphate" why isn't he doing it?

democratic Russia

LOL.

[annalex]

modern Russia's most fundamental problems do not result from the radical reforms of the liberal period of Yeltsin's terms as president, but from the open or clandestine resistance offered to these reforms by the Russian special services

Yes, absolutely. Yeltsin should have banned the Communist party and condemned FSB as a criminal organization. There was a brief period when he could do so. It is a tragedy that he did not, and instead promoted Putin.

[ETL]

Bush did 9/11? Sounds like one of those theories.

Not even close.

[ETL]

Putin has political opponents or snitches killed.

Speaking of 'snitches', this guy (Mikhail Lesin), the co-founder of the Russian government-controlled news outlet "Russia Today" (RT), which most of the FR Putinistas often link to in their posted threads, died mysteriously in a Wash DC hotel last month (Nov 2015). Word is he was about to become an informer, a 'snitch'. Putin's Russia is very similar to the Mafia.

___________________________________

"RT [Russia Today] has been called a propaganda outlet for the Russian government[10][11][12] and its foreign policy[10][11][13][14] by former Russian officials[15] and by news reporters,[16] including former RT reporters.[17][18][19]

It has also been accused of spreading disinformation.[20][21][22]

The United Kingdom media regulator Ofcom has threatened RT with sanctions because of repeated violations of its rules on impartiality.[23]

The network states that it offers a 'Russian perspective' on global events.[24]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_%28TV_network%29
____________________________________

Nov 2015...

Vladimir Putin's media Svengali who was found dead in DC hotel was 'murdered for being an FBI informant'

• Millionaire Mikhail Lesin, 57, was found dead in $240-a-night in Washington DC last Friday [Nov 6, 2015] and police are investigating

• The pro-Putin 'propaganda channel' he set up, RT [Russia Today], claimed he 'had been suffering from a prolonged unidentified illness'

• But DC police have made no such finding

  "Nicknamed the 'Bulldozer', Lesin was one of the key props of the Putin presidency, personally masterminding a wide-ranging media crackdown which has left the vast majority of Russian TV stations and newspapers obedient to the Kremlin."

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315994/Vladimir-Putin-s-media-mastermind-dead-DC-hotel-murdered-FBI-informant-alive-claim-Russians.html#ixzz3rOUopg7Q

  ************************************************************

  Re: Mikhail Lesin, the creator of Russia Today (RT). He just last month was found dead in a Wash DC hotel...

  The article is from last December (2014)

  __________________________________

  "Mikhail Lesin has stepped down as head of major state-controlled media holding Gazprom-Media, the company said late last week.

  Gazprom-Media, whose holdings include independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, said Lesin's resignation was due to family reasons, Russian media reports said Friday.

  The holding's board of directors will finalize his resignation at an upcoming meeting, Gazprom-Media was cited by Ekho Moskvy as saying. No replacement has been named.

  Earlier, a flurry of reports of Lesin's imminent resignation appeared on Russian news wires, all based on undisclosed sources and giving divergent accounts of the motive.

  Forbes Russia cited sources in the media and government as confirming the resignation, with one of the individuals claiming that the decision was made personally by President Vladimir Putin."

  http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/513690.html
  _______________________________________________________

  Here's something from 2013 on Mikhail Lesin, again, the creator of Russia Today (RT), who was found dead in a Washington DC hotel last month (Nov 2015)...

  The Ominous Return of Putin's Media Enforcer

  Vladimir Kara-Murza
  October 18, 2013

The recent return of Vladimir Putin's longtime eminence grise, Vladislav Surkov, to the Kremlin was widely discussed in the media. Much less noticed was the appointment of Mikhail Lesin, Putin's former information minister, as the new head of Gazprom-Media, Russia's largest, and de facto state-run, media group, which incorporates several broadcast, print, and online outlets.

Lesin's return to a senior position is no less symbolic than that of Surkov, and says a lot about the Kremlin's plans for Russia's few remaining uncensored media.

Lesin was a central figure in the early Putin years, spearheading the Kremlin's effort to silence the country's independent television, the first step in the consolidation of authoritarian rule.

The first target was NTV, at that time Russia's largest and most popular independent TV channel, whose hard-hitting news broadcasts, talk shows, and satirical programs criticized the government over growing corruption and the war in Chechnya and gave airtime to the opposition.

In June 2000, a month after Putin's inauguration, NTV's founder and majority shareholder, Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested and placed in Moscow's infamous Butyrka prison.

While he was there, the information minister made an offer: Gusinsky could have his freedom if he agreed to transfer his media holdings to Gazprom, the state-owned energy monopoly.

On July 20, 2000, while still under a prosecutorial recognizance, Gusinsky signed a deal to sell his media outlets to Gazprom that included "Annex 6," which provided for the "termination of the criminal prosecution against Mr Vladimir Aleksandrovich Gusinskiy in connection with the criminal case initiated against him on 13 June 2000, his reclassification as a witness in the said case and suspension of the precautionary measure prohibiting him from leaving [the country]." "Annex 6" was personally signed by Information Minister Mikhail Lesin.

In its 2004 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights found the NTV owner's arrest to have been politically motivated and in violation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, emphasizing in particular that "the facts that Gazprom asked the applicant to sign the July agreement when he was in prison, that a State minister [Lesin] endorsed such an agreement with his signature, and that a State investigating officer later implemented that agreement by dropping the charges strongly suggest that the applicant's prosecution was used to intimidate him."

In the end, Gusinsky refused to give up NTV (once out of Russia, he annulled the deal as having been signed under duress). The offices of Russia's largest independent television channel were forcibly taken over by Gazprom-installed security guards in the early hours of April 14, 2001. TV6, a smaller independent channel that sheltered former NTV journalists, was shut down by the authorities in January 2002. The journalists found another short-lived home in TVS, Russia's last nationwide independent television channel, which was taken off the air in June 2003. By this time, the regime no longer cared for appearances and saw no need to hide behind "legal" decisions of obedient courts: the TVS signal was switched off by a direct order of Information Minister Mikhail Lesin, who cited 'viewers' interests" as the reason for the decision.

After this state campaign against major media outlets, Lesin left the spotlight, only occasionally surfacing in the news, for instance, when he co-founded RT [Russia Today], the Kremlin's English-language propaganda mouthpiece.

His return as the new director general of Gazprom-Media could signal another attack on media pluralism in Russia. A likely target could be Ekho Moskvy radio, which, unlike other Gazprom-Media outlets (including the present pro-Kremlin NTV), continues to maintain an independent editorial line and invite opposition leaders to its studios. Many in the Russian media community took Lesin's appointment as a grim sign.

Interestingly, Lesin may become one of the first senior Putin regime officials to face consequences for his involvement in human rights abuses. Earlier this year, civil society groups reportedly proposed Lesin's name for inclusion in the US blacklist under the Magnitsky Act, which provides for visa bans and asset freezes for Russian officials involved in human rights violations.

The next update of the US list may come in December. Meanwhile, sources in the European Parliament indicate that Lesin may be placed on a European Union visa blacklist. This would come as bad news to Putin's media enforcer: according to the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Lesin owns a 2 million, euro estate in Finland's Turku Archipelago, purchased through a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. This would indeed be a timely and appropriate message, that helping a dictatorship to muzzle the free media and enjoying the comfort of the Western world are no longer compatible.

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/ominous-return-putins-media-enforcer
_______________________________________________________

List of journalists killed in Russia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia#A_list_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

[doug6352]

“How is it weak?”

Russia was already committed in Syria at the time of the airplane bombing, and didn’t need an excuse to commit. They also don’t seek to take military action against Egypt. I don’t doubt that Putin has domestic political problems, but stopping Egyptian vacations for Russians makes them worse. I know a few Russians, and their most popular low-cost vacation destinations are (1)Turkey and (2)Egypt. Now that both of those destinations are ruled out due to the Syrian adventure, Putin has a serious domestic morale problem to deal with. I’m not a Putin fan, but I don’t think he blew up his own plane under these circumstances. Under other circumstances he is certainly evil enough to do it.

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

Quote: Putin has political opponents or snitches killed. American presidents do not.

You're kidding, right? Try searching 'Clinton Body Count'.

I don't know why anyone would work, or be associated with them. There seems to be a high level of mortally 'bad luck' associated with anyone who may be in a position to comment directly on their business, political, or sexual associations.

Of course, it could be that 'naturally unlucky' individuals are drawn to the couple from New York by way of Arkansas.

[annalex]

The loss of Turkey and Egypt as vacation destinations is a loss for the Russian people, not for the Pu’s regime. To him, quite the opposite, growing isolation of the people is another brick in the USSR 2.0 edifice. Remember that the USSR was very dependent on restricted travel.

Domestic anger and the sense that the country is under attack is also a gain for Pu.

The motives — I enumerated most of them already: not so much to justify his Syrian campaign, but to make it look defensive in nature, to seek quid-pro-quo with the West over Ukraine by gaining western sympathies, enlarge the foothold in the Middle East, and to expand the arms sales.

[PhilDragoo]

Putin: Man of Polonium

[The Sons of Liberty]

American presidents do not

Perhaps you are too young to remember Bubba Klinton and his lengthy list of acquaintances that had unfortunate "accidents"?

[Zhang Fei]

Perhaps you are too young to remember Bubba Klinton and his lengthy list of acquaintances that had unfortunate "accidents"?

I remember it well. However, no less a luminary than Ken Starr ruled Vince Foster's death a suicide. Note that Linda Tripp is still alive. As are Juanita Broaddrick and Gennifer Flowers. Putin would have planted them all.

[Jacob Kell]

>The difference is the position of the source, close to the GRU leadership.

Supposedly, according to Karpichkov. However, the only evidence we have so far is his statements. The DailyMail states that it could well be basically just sour grapes by a very disgruntled man. After all, Major Karpichkov supposedly fell out with his KGB paymasters over money he claimed was owed to him, and ended up in jail before fleeing to Britain. Also, how could he have kept contacts in Russia after over a decade? Wouldn’t it be possible that at least some of those might have been compromised?

[Jacob Kell]

Besides, Russia was already involved in Syria, and the UN and Obama wasn’t saying boo to him with regard to that or the Ukraine.

[duckln]

Pu is rebuilding the USSR under the guise of various pseudo-patriotic and pseudo-Christian slogans.

You still believe the big lie promoted by Nazi Joseph Goebbels in the 1930's. He and Hitler started the national hate the USSR mentality, and it has grown today to international hate. This despite all the positive changes made since then.

Russia left the eastern block in the 90's, helped reunited east and west Germany never to return. Nato on the other hand continued to put a choke hold on the country by putting troops on their borders and agitating former USSR republics..

Right now I figure Russia wants neutrality on it's borders. It doesn't want to be invaded again.

They have the high ground. It's topsy turvy, they now are first, faith, family, anti homo, marriage promoting , while we are going in the opposite direction.

[ETL]

KGB/FSB Putin can do no wrong in your twisted little mind. How much are they paying you?

[ETL]

Documents Show How Russia's Troll Army Hit America:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america

[ETL]

Kremlin pays internet trolls to flatter Putin
Ben Hoyle - Moscow
October 11 2013

Russian investigative journalists and bloggers have uncovered an army of internet trolls paid to pour invective on the Kremlin's opponents and heap praise on President Putin.

Posing as job applicants, the reporters discovered the government hacks working at a small company called the St Petersburg Internet Research Agency. ..."

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article3891720.ece

[ETL]

Russian Propaganda Is Taking Over Online Comment Boards

Pamela Engel
May 4, 2014

British newspaper The Guardian notes that recently, readers have been complaining of pro-Russia propaganda being posted in the comments section of articles about Russia and Ukraine.

One reader wrote to The Guardian:

"One need only pick a Ukraine article at random, pick any point in the comments at random, and they will find themselves in a sea of incredibly aggressive and hostile users (the most obvious have accounts created since February 2014 ... but there also exist those who registered with the Guardian before the high point of the crisis) who post the most biased, inciteful [sic] pro-Kremlin, anti-western propaganda that seems as if it's taken from a template, so repetitive are the statements. Furthermore, these comments are consistently capturing inordinate numbers of 'recommends', sometimes on the order of 10 to 12 times what pro-Ukrainian comments receive."

Guardian comment moderators believe this is an orchestrated campaign.

Russia has worked hard to make people believe that the country is supporting the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine and defending those people against some type of threat. These "comment mills" play into that strategy.

Last year, The Atlantic wrote about how the Russian government apparently pays people to "sit in a room, surf the Internet, and leave sometimes hundreds of postings a day that criticize the country's opposition and promote Kremlin-backed policymakers."

This practice isn't new, according to The Atlantic. But it can stifle open discussion about political issues in Russia, giving a louder voice to those who support the Kremlin.

http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-paying-people-to-post-pro-russia-propaganda-in-comments-2014-5

[ETL]

This is from a highly respectable (Conservative) source, Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy In Media (AIM)...

Follow Trump's Money to Moscow

Renew America ^ | December 25, 2015 | Cliff Kincaid

The phrase "follow the money" is supposed to help explain human behavior, especially in politics. So why has Donald Trump embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin? Why has he denied the evidence of Putin's killing of Russian journalists and dissidents? A savvy businessman, Trump is certainly not dumb. There must be something else to it.

Reports dating back to 1987, during the time of the old Soviet Union, reveal that Trump has been seeking business in Russia and attempting to build a "Russian Trump Tower" in Moscow and perhaps other Russian cities.

At this particular time in history, with Putin's cronies under financial sanctions because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin's praise for Trump may signal another attempt to get the capitalists and their money back into Russia. Such a ploy depends on Trump and others rehabilitating Putin by claiming that he is fighting terrorism in Syria, not bolstering a long-time Soviet/Russian client state.

Thanks to the effectiveness of the Russia Today (RT) channel, which saturates the U.S. media market, especially cable television, Putin is indeed looking like a statesman on the world stage.

Trump's relationship with Russia goes far back. In 1987, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was meeting with Soviet officials and negotiating the building of "luxury hotels" in Moscow and Leningrad. A story at the time said Trump had met Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin, who mentioned how much his daughter had admired the "opulent" Trump Tower in New York City. This led to an invitation to Trump to visit the USSR. The story said Dubinin wrote a letter to Trump, who hosted a meeting with Soviet officials in New York.

The invitation to Moscow was issued by Intourist, the giant Soviet in-country travel organization which operated all the hotels for foreigners in the Soviet Union. Intourist was created in 1929 by Joseph Stalin and run by KGB officials. Intourist hotels were designed for wealthy foreigners, and virtually all the Intourist guides were KGB informers. In fact, one aspect of their jobs was the recruitment of foreigners.

However, Trump expressed concern about "Soviet regulations on joint ventures, which require that the Soviets hold a controlling 51 percent interest" in such projects. Trump wanted majority control.

The book The Global Emerging Market: Strategic Management and Economics, by Vladimir Kvint, said that as far back as 2008, the Trump Organization had registered its trademarks in Russia in the areas of real estate development and construction. Trump's son, Donald Jr., said in an interview at the time that his father was looking at investing in Russia and China. These were considered top A-list countries. Donald Jr. is the executive vice president of Development & Acquisitions at the Trump Organization.

Trump wasn't the only businessman who thought the new Russia would prove hospitable to foreign investment. American businessman Bill Browder ran an investment fund in Russia called Hermitage Capital. Once a Putin fan, he thought private property rights were going to be protected. However, he was deported in 2005, his assets stolen, and his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was tortured and killed. Browder now says, "The Russian regime is a criminal regime. We're dealing with a nuclear country run by a bunch of Mafia crooks. And we have to know that."

Cases like that didn't stop Congress in 2012 from voting for Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) for Russia. It passed the Senate by 92-4 and the House by 365-43. Despite the ominous trends, including Putin's invasion of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in 2008, big business thought a lot of money could still be made in Russia. In 2013, Trump was himself back in Russia holding his "Miss Universe" pageant. "I have plans to start business in Russia," Trump told the Russian media. "I am currently in talks with several Russian companies to build a skyscraper on the model of Trump Tower in New York."

One of Trump's contacts was Russian billionaire Araz Agalarov and his company Crocus Group. He owned Crocus City Hall, where the Miss Universe finals were being held. He confirmed that his company, Crocus Group, had been participating in real estate talks with Trump. Later that year Agalarov was given an outstanding citizen award by Vladimir Putin at a ceremony held in the Kremlin. He has been called "The Donald Trump of Russia."

Rather than treat China and Russia as business opportunities, Trump said in his 2011 book 'Time To Get Tough' that China is "not our friend" and is stealing our jobs, technology, and military capabilities. It appears that a business relationship with China had soured since the time Donald Jr. was considering investing there. Trump's attacks on China have been a big hit on the campaign trail.

Analyst Nevin Gussack says of Trump, "While his trade and immigration policies would strengthen our strategic and economic posture, his naivete and ignorance of Russia and even Cuba is very disconcerting." It appears that Trump has flip-flopped on the question of whether he would invest in communist Cuba.

As far as Russia is concerned, there's no talk in the 2011 book of doing business with Putin. But Trump said that he "often speaks highly" of Putin because of his "intelligence and no-nonsense way." An intelligence operative, Putin was in the KGB and ran one of the KGB's successor agencies, the FSB.

Putin certainly has a "no-nonsense" approach to his perceived political enemies. Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned, miraculously survived, but was then later shot dead on October 7, 2006, which happened to be Putin's birthday. She had been warning about the KGB's return to power and was investigating the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and murder of hundreds in the Beslan school massacre in southern Russia in 2004. This event, like the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings, was blamed on Islamists and gave Putin the opportunity, or pretext, to further consolidate his power over the military, the intelligence agencies, and the economy. He assumed virtual dictatorial powers.

The poisoning of Politkovskaya was a hallmark of the KGB's "no-nonsense" way of doing business. Later that same year, dissident former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was murdered by poisoning in London, to which he had fled. He wrote the book Blowing Up Moscow: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror, about the FSB's role in those 1999 Moscow apartment bombings. He had also named al-Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, as having been trained by the KGB.

While Trump's 2011 book denounced "Obama's pandering to the Russians" in areas like sabotaging missile defense for our allies, he said Putin had a "grand vision," the creation of a "Eurasian Union" to replace the USSR. He said Putin wanted to control oil supplies to all of Europe. This was an important insight into how Putin's regime is not defensive, nor reacting to the U.S. and NATO, but is instead aggressive in foreign affairs and trying to dominate its neighbors. However, rather than explain what the Russians were up to with this "grand vision," Trump went on to say "Hats off to the Russians" in getting their way with Obama.

One can fully understand taking Obama to task for giving in to the Russians. But praising the Russians for taking advantage of Obama reflects a trait that is all too common with many conservatives. Their disgust with Obama has blinded them to the nature of our enemies, who exploit his foreign policy to their advantage. They somehow think Putin is acting in America's interests when Obama is not. That's ludicrous.

In his latest book, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, Trump notes that Putin is "outmaneuvering" Obama in the Middle East. Trump calls Putin a leader, in contrast to Obama. But what is Putin leading? Trump refers to Iran as "Russia's best friend," without explaining the significance of its alliance with Russia. Trump also says in his book that he doesn't understand "why Germany and other countries watched impassively as Putin marched into Ukraine."

After the invasion of Ukraine and the shoot-down of the Malaysian plane by Russian-backed terrorists, Trump claimed, "I think I became much richer because I can understand people and read people and Putin is not finished. Putin has got a long way to go."

Again, we are left thinking that Trump understands the aggressive intentions of Vladimir Putin.

Yet, when Trump was asked about the nuclear balance with Russia during the most recent Republican presidential debate, he displayed ignorance of the decaying nature of the U.S. nuclear triad, which constitutes our ability to deter and survive a Russian nuclear first strike.

Meanwhile, Putin has just presided over a ceremony honoring the KGB's successor agencies, and the Russia Today (RT) propaganda channel has announced the grand opening of a "cultural center" dedicated to mass murderer Joseph Stalin.

It looks like Putin has outmaneuvered Obama and Trump. It is an opening for Trump's opponents, especially Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL). But do they have the courage to "follow the money" and hold Trump accountable for doing business with a criminal regime that threatens the survival of the United States? At the end of this money trail, they may find an explanation of why Trump is so reluctant to hold Putin responsible for his crimes.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/kincaid/151225

****************************************************************

TRUMP: Vladimir Putin's praise is 'a great honor'

Business Insider ^ | December 17, 2015 | By Maxwell Tani

Republican US presidential front-runner Donald Trump is apparently "honored" that Russian President Vladimir Putin considers the real-estate magnate a "flamboyant" and "very talented" man.

"It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond," Trump said in a statement, according to Politico.

He continued: "I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect."

(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...

[ETL]

"For 16 years Putin was an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991.

He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging,[3] and was reelected in 2004."

"On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin head of the FSB (one of the successor agencies to the KGB), the position Putin occupied until August 1999. He became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on 1 October 1998 and its Secretary on 29 March 1999."

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

*********************************************************

From a 2007 article titled "Putin's Russia"...

"KGB influence 'soars under Putin,' " blared the headline of a BBC online article for December 13, 2006. The following day, a similar headline echoed a similarly alarming story at the website of Der Spiegel, one of Germany's largest news magazines: "Putin's Russia: Kremlin Riddled with Former KGB Agents."

In the opening sentences of Der Spiegel's article, readers are informed that: "Four out of five members of Russia's political and business elite have a KGB past, according to a new study by the prestigious [Russian] Academy of Sciences. The influence of ex-Soviet spies has ballooned under President Vladimir Putin."

The study, which looked at 1,061 top Kremlin, regional, and corporate jobs, found that "78 percent of the Russian elite" are what are known in Russia as "siloviki," which is to say, former members of the KGB or its domestic successor, the FSB. The author of the study, Olga Kryshtanovskaya, expressed shock at her own findings. "I was very shocked when I looked at the boards of major companies and realized there were lots of people who had completely unknown names, people who were not public but who were definitely, obvious siloviki," she told Reuters.

Other supposed experts - in Russia and the West - have also expressed surprise and alarm at the apparent resurrection of the dreaded Soviet secret police. After all, for the past decade and a half these same experts have been pointing to the alleged demise of the KGB as the primary evidence supporting their claim that communism is dead.

From the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the Russian security apparatus Cheka (and its later permutations: OGPU, NKVD, MGB, KGB) had been the "sword and shield" of the communist world revolution.

"We stand for organized terror," declared Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first chief of the Cheka for Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin. In 1918, Dzerzhinsky launched the campaign of arrests and executions known as the Red Terror. Krasnaya Gazeta, the Bolshevik newspaper, expressed the Chekist credo when it reported approvingly in 1918 of the terror campaign: "We will make our hearts cruel, hard and immovable, so that no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood."

Unflinching cruelty and merciless, bloody terror have been the trademark of the communist secret police, from the Cheka to the KGB. Obviously, the demise of such an organization would be cause for much rejoicing. Hence, when the KGB was ordered dissolved and its chairman, General Vladimir Kryuchkov, was arrested in 1991 after attempting to overthrow "liberal reformer" Mikhail Gorbachev in the failed "August Coup," many people in the West were only too willing to pop the champagne corks and start celebrating our supposed victory over the Evil Empire.

But, as Mikhail Leontiyev, commentator for Russia's state-controlled Channel One television, recently noted, repeating a phrase popular among the siloviki: "Americans got so drunk at the USSR's funeral that they're still hung over." And stumbling around in their post-inebriation haze, many of these Americans have only recently begun noticing that they had prematurely written the KGB's epitaph, even as it was arising vampire-like from the coffin.

However, there is really no excuse for Olga Kryshtanovskaya or any of her American counterparts to be stunned by the current siloviki dominance in Putin's Russia. For nearly a decade, even before he became Russia's "president," THE NEW AMERICAN has been reporting on Putin's KGB pedigree and his steady implementation of a long-range Soviet deception strategy, including the public rehabilitation and refortifying of the KGB-FSB. ..."

(continues at link)

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/8420-putins-russia

[MarchonDC09122009]

ETL, thanks again for posting astounding multi-source detail on Russian treachery.
When Cruz wins the 2016 presidency, I want you to join as an intelligence advisor in at least a research capacity.