Giulio Meotti : Putin’s Russia Claims the Role of Defender of Christians Under Islam

The Geller Report ^ | 4/24/17 | Giulio Meotti

[marshmallow]

Fears of Islamic terrorism permeate Russian history. In the nineteenth century, Russian novelists wrote books about Russian officers fighting Islamic warriors in the Caucasus (such as Hadji Murat by Lev Tolstoy). The Russian soldier fights the Islamic warrior, the one struggling to protect the Christian civilization, the other determined to eradicate it.

Now Russia has quickly replaced the United States as the number one enemy of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other Sunni jihadist groups motivated by the violent and puritan salafist ideology. Recent Middle Eastern Russian interventions, including those in Syria and Libya, have raised Russia to the status of the main target of the Jihadists. Everywhere it has intervened abroad, Russia seems to have been always moved by a deep fear of Islam. Putin said to CBS’ Charlie Rose that the “most important” reason why Russia came to war in Syria was the “threat of their return.” “They” are the 7,000 Russian Muslims who fought for the Caliphate.

Some Russian experts, including Alexei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center and Roman Silantiev of the Ministry of Justice, estimate that there are thousands of Salafist prayer groups in Russia nowadays, with Islam spreading practically in all regions of Russia, including Siberia and even in the Far East. Russia has also an internal demographic fear. A recent report by the Jamestown Foundation entitled “How Islam Will Change Russia” explained this challenge very well: given the demographic changes, Muslims will represent from one-third to half of the Russian population by 2050.

In addition to adventurism in Muslim countries, Russian forces have embarked on a massive counter-insurgency campaign against Islamic militants in its own soil. The jihadists were responsible for major attacks on Russian soil, including the hostage crisis at Moscow’s theater in 2002, the siege in Beslan in 2004, the............

[MeganC]

Then reading comprehension is not your forte because I wrote no such thing.

[Veto!]

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/08/putins-dragon

Very interesting article about Putin’s Dragon...the leader of Chechnya...from The New Yorker. One of the reasons I believe Putin is a political genius.

One of the reasons he does well is his ability to sort out real from fake intelligence, having been a KGB man early in his career.

[Veto!]

Your link sounds vaguely familiar....song from a very very long time ago.

[Nifster]

Go back and read what you wrote and how I responded

[Fiddlstix]

My grandpa used to sing this. He taught us kids to sing it. It’s very old.

[Veto!]

It’s all so very politically incorrect...and reminds me of the funny old song we used to sing around campfires: John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, that’s my name too...bet. you know the rest.

Now kids riot in the streets or shoot each other for fun, but at least they are NOT POLITICALLY INCORRECT.