November 2, 2009 — Contents

MONDAY NOVEMBER 2 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Russia Dreams of being Guatemala

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Hitler and Chamberlain, Putin and Obama

(3)  Vladimir Putin, Lonely and Weak

(4)  Annals of Neo-Soviet “Education”

(5)  Russia and the Dark Rider

(6)  Russian Blood on the Sands of Doha

NOTE:  Oleg Kozlovsky blogs about Putin’s stormtroopers practicing to use water cannons and tear gas on protesting senior citizens, then covering it all up when caught red-handed.

EDITORIAL: Russia Dreams of being Guatemala

America vs. Russia

EDITORIAL

Russia Dreams of Being Guatemala

The chart above was compiled based on data collected for the 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index, which was published last week.  The data compares 104 different countries of the world on nine different criteria to determine an overall ranking for prosperity and happiness.  America ranks #9 on the list. Russia ranks #69.  The green line in the chart shows America’s level of attainment on the  list of criteria, with the outer edge of the circle representing perfection. The blue line is Russia.  It shows Russia to be, compared to fully developed, rounded America, a perverted, twisted, Mongoloid deformity, like a baby born without arms and legs and a head the size of a golf ball.

But let’s not bash Russia by comparing it to America, even though it is baiting the U.S. into a new cold war, an act which this chart clearly shows is utterly suicidal. Let’s instead point out that Guatemala — yes, Guatemala — is ranked #67 on the list, above Russia.

EDITORIAL: Putin is our Hitler and Obama is our Chamberlain

EDITORIAL

Putin is our Hitler and Obama is our Chamberlain

“Nothing matters more to Mr. Putin and his oligarchs than the price of oil. Even with oil at $70 a barrel, Russia’s economy is in bad straits. Tension in the Middle East, even an outbreak of war, would push energy prices higher. A nuclear-armed Iran would, of course, be harmful to Russian national security, but prolonging the crisis is beneficial to the interests of the ruling elite: making money and staying in power.”

Garry Kasparov, The Wall Street Journal, 10/18/09

Quite possibly, the single most important point that we in the West need to understand about neo-Soviet Russia under proud KGB spy Vladimir Putin is that the country benefits tremendously from instability, terror and war in the Middle East.  Those who would suggest that Russia fears a nuclear-armed Islamic dictatorship in Iran simply do not appreciate how utterly dependent the neo-Soviet state always has been on the price of crude oil, or how much tension in the Middle East works to Russia’s advantage in making oil markets nervous and driving up the price.

Vladimir Putin: Lonely and Weak

Anders Aslund, writing in the Moscow Times:

Russia’s relations with its neighbors are worse than ever, and this is particularly true among the former Soviet republics. On Oct. 9, the Commonwealth of Independent States held its annual summit in Chisinau. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta headline said it all: “Summit in 30 Minutes. CIS Leaders Had Nothing to Tell One Another.”

Georgia left the alliance on Aug. 18. Among the remaining 11 members, only six presidents arrived — from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan, while the host country, Moldova, temporarily has no president. Even the strongest proponent of multilateral cooperation in the post-Soviet region, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, chose to stay at home. Needless to say, nothing was accomplished.

To aggravate things further, President Dmitry Medvedev refused to meet Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. Will Lukashenko attend another CIS meeting after that insult? Everybody left quickly after their half-hour meeting and even skipped the planned gala dinner. The CIS is Russia’s baby, and its failure is also Russia’s.

Annals of Neo-Soviet “Education”

The New York Times reports on the horrifying neo-sovietization of education:

Word spread this month among the faculty members of St. Petersburg State University: According to a document signed on Oct. 1, they have to submit their work to administrators for permission before publishing it abroad or presenting it at overseas conferences.

The order, which was circulated internally and made its way onto a popular Internet forum, says professors must provide their academic department with copies of texts to be made public outside Russia, so that they can be reviewed for violation of intellectual property laws or potential danger to national security.

Russia and the Dark Rider

Stratfor reports:

Russian opposition members rallied in Moscow’s Pushkin Square on April 14. The so-called Dissenters’ March was organized by Other Russia, an umbrella group that includes everyone from unrepentant communists and free-market reformers to far-right ultranationalists whose only uniting characteristic is their common opposition to the centralization of power under President Vladimir Putin’s administration.

Minutes after the march began, the 2,000 or so protesters found themselves outnumbered more than four to one by security forces. They quickly dispersed the activists, beating and briefly detaining those who sought to break through the riot-control lines. Among those arrested were chess-champion-turned-political-activist Garry Kasparov and Maria Gaidar, the daughter of Russia’s first post-Soviet reformist prime minister. Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov only avoided arrest because his bodyguards helped him to escape. A Reuters crew was permitted to capture the events and disseminate them to the West. A day later, another protest, albeit far smaller, was broken up in a similar way in St. Petersburg, though Kasparov was detained before the protest even began.

What gives? The protests were insignificant in both numerical and political terms. Moreover, with all that is going on in the world right now, the last thing the Putin government needs is to attract negative attention to itself. The answer becomes apparent when one considers Russia’s point in its historical cycle and the mounting pressures on Putin personally that have nothing whatsoever to do with “democracy.”

Russian Blood on the Sands of Doha

It’s hard to imagine how the Russian contingent at the year-end round-robin Tour Championships in Doha, Qatar, could have humiliated itself in a more spectacular fashion.

October 30, 2009 — Contents

FRIDAY OCTOBER 30 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Nashi goes to Court

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Annals of Putinomics

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Will Russia outlaw Time itself?

(4)  Putin’s Long Knives point towards Georgia

(5)  Russia:  The World’s most Gastronomically Challenged Country

NOTE:  Kim Zigfeld’s latest installment of her Russia column on the Pajamas Media blog condemns the horrifyingly blatant fraud imposed by the Kremlin on the country’s recent “elections.”  And over at the American Thinker, she lets the Putin regime have it for defending American-killer and terrorist-supplier Victor Bout.

EDITORIAL: Nashi goes to Court

EDITORIAL

Nashi goes to Court

Nashi, Vladimir Putin’s personal Hitler-youth cult, filed suit last week in Moscow accusing a British newspaper (The Independent), two French ones (Le Monde and  Le Journal Du Dimanche) and a Germany counterpart (Frankfurter Rundshau) of libel in referring to Nashi as what is, a “Hitler-youth cult comprised of bandits and nationalists.”

It’s telling that Nashi appears to have neither the funds nor the guts to file these lawsuits in Britain, France or Germany where the reports actually occurred.  Apparently, Nashi doesn’t think it could win a case in any of those places, and therefore needs to lodge the suit in the corrupt Russia court system, where a ham sandwich could make a case if it had been made by Vladimir Putin.

Also telling is that, once again, Nashi appears to be lying.

EDITORIAL: Annals of Putinomics

EDITORIAL

Annals of Putinomics

Bloomberg reported earlier this week:

Russian banks are characterized by “very high risk on a global comparison,” Standard & Poor’s said in a Sept. 28 report. The share of “problem loans” may jump to $110 billion by year-end and account for 25 percent of total lending by the end of 2010, compared with 11 percent in the middle of this year, Moody’s estimates.

No banking system can survive one-quarter of its loan portfolio being non-performing.   Russia’s banking system, in other words, is on the verge of collapse. And that’s not the end of the horror, because there’s blowback.

EDITORIAL: Will Russia outlaw Time itself?

EDITORIAL

Will Russia outlaw Time itself?

You probably know that if you live in New York City or Moscow, though you may think Christmas comes in the winter that’s not how they see it down under in Australia.  For the Aussies, Christmas is a summertime affair.

Russia is in the process of becoming even more flexible.   Who says morning comes at 9 am?

Putin’s Long Knives point towards Georgia

Ryan Mauro is the founder of WorldThreats.com and the director of intelligence at the Asymmetrical Warfare and Intelligence Center (AWIC), writing on Pajamas Media:

The director of Russia’s FSB intelligence service is accusing the Georgian government of being a secret ally of al-Qaeda, taking the country’s anti-Georgian rhetoric to a new height. Russia is apparently unsatisfied with absorbing Abkhazia and South Ossetia from the Georgians, but what else do they want?

The FSB director said that Georgia’s intelligence services have been holding meetings with members of al-Qaeda and providing them with safe harbor, arms, and training in order to carry out attacks against Russia.

“They perpetually undertake to deliver weapons, explosives, and financing for subversive acts on high-security sites in Dagestan — first and foremost on oil and gas pipelines,” he said.

Russia: The world’s most gastronomically challenged country

The New York Post agrees with our analysis of the horrifying deficiences of Russian “cuisine”:

It’s no shock that Nets buyer Mikhail Prokhorov celebrated the other day at Nello. The Madison Avenue joint’s overpriced food and underfed blondes are perfect for a bimbo-craving, globetrotting gazillionaire from the world’s most gastronomically challenged country.

Nello’s theoretically Italian, seasoning-shy Oligarch Cuisine attracts the kind of vagabonding clowns too eager to flaunt their ill-gotten gains — hedge-fund scoundrels, tainted politicians, dope-snorting movie stars. Plus, as Mr. Nello Balan once informed us in an ad he placed in this newspaper, “her royal majesty, the late Princess Diana,” Prince Andrew and Prince Albert of Monaco.

They can’t all be going there for the food, even if the joint’s organic guinea hen has more meat on it than some of the broads who hog the front tables.

October 28, 2009 — Contents

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 28 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Medvedev drags Russia Deeper into the Mire

(2)  EDITORIAL:  The EU Spits in Putin’s Eye

(3)  Russia’s Dirty Caucasus Secret

(4)  In Vino Veritas

(5)  Cartoon: The Democracy Dirge

NOTE:  The always brilliant journalists at Pravda report the pulse-pounding story that the U.S. will attack Russia within 3-4 years.  It was the lead story on the Pravda website last weekend. How do they know? Because NATO is building bases in Bulgaria and Romania with 2,000 soliders each (no source, of course) and because . . . wait for it . . . the U.S. Military Academy at West Point is teaching Russian language (no source, of course).  Pravda says it started teaching Farsi Arabic 3-4 years before the invasion of Iraq, so the proof is conclusive.  That Barack Obama is clearly one dangerous man.

EDITORIAL: Medvedev drags Russia Deeper into the Mire

EDITORIAL

Medvedev drags Russia Deeper into the Mire

We published a barrage of items last week documenting in the most horrifying chapter and verse imaginable the barbaric, indeed ape-like, electoral fraud that took place during Russia’s recent elections.  The facts are plain for all to see. They are scientific, they come from Russian sources. No thinking person can dispute them.  The world stands slack-jawed and appalled.

But not the Kremlin. 

EDITORIAL: The EU Spits in Putin’s Eye

EDITORIAL

The EU Spits in Putin’s Eye

If there was anyone left among the wretched Russophile rabble who still thought Europe was on Russia’s side against Georgia, surely not even they could still believe so after learning that the European Union had awarded its highest honor, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, to one of Vladimir Putin’s most ardent and fearless foes, the Memorial human rights organization.

Russia’s Dirty Caucasus Secrets

SBS Dateline has produced a documentary film about Russia’s secret dirty wars in the Caucasus.  Watch it here.  The following is a transcript ,which could not be more timely as Maksharib Aushev, just murdered as noted in our Special Extra below, is quoted extensively:

In the Caucasus Mountains along Russia’s southern fringe, a hidden war is escalating. Moscow says it’s battling militant Islam in the tiny republic of Ingushetia. But people here say hundreds of innocent civilians are being tortured and murdered.

REPORTER: He says, “We can no longer walk. “Our teeth have been broken, our jaws are broken. “We desperately need some help.”

They say they live in terror of a Russian security apparatus out of control.

We arrived in Nazran, the largest town in the mainly Muslim Russian Republic of Ingushetia. We were taken to a house, where we were met by a crowd of grieving women. Just a few days earlier, at 5:30 in the morning, 400 heavily armed Russian soldiers had surrounded the house.

REPORTER: And then what happened?

In Vino Veritas

The Washington Times reports:

When Russia boycotted Georgian wine in 2006, Georgia lost 80 percent of its export market for wine overnight. Now, Georgian winemakers look back at the ban as a blessing in disguise.

Cartoon: The Democracy Dirge

Our readers likely already know all about the controversy that has raged in Russia over whether to remove Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin from his tomb on Red Square and give him a traditional burial. Cartoonist Sergei Yelkin, a/k/a “Ellustrator,” replaces the word “Lenin” on the tomb with “Democracy” and has Russian “president” Dima Medevedv urging “let’s not bury democracy!” as we reference in our editorial today.

SPECIAL EXTRA: Another one Bites the Dust

Maksharip Aushev

Journalist, lawyer, human rights activist and businessman Maksharip Aushev, heir apparent to Ingushetia.org publisher Magomed Yevloyev (murdered in August 2008 becuase of his opposition activities),was brutally assassinated in Nazran, Ingushetia, on Sunday.  Just as Natalia Estemirova, heir of Anna Politikovskaya, was liquidated, so too has become the fate of the heir of the firey Yevloyev, whose website boldly challenged the Kremlin’s mismanagement, manipulation, persecution and destruction of the Caucasus region.  Aushev took over and ran Ingushetia.org after Yevloyev’s murder (which the Kremlin ridiculously tried to pass off as an “accident”).  When Yevloyev was murdered, the Kremlin placed a military intelligence officer — i.e., a KGB spy — in charge of Ingushetia, and this killing is the inevitable result of the Kremlin’s further tragically impotent efforts to clamp down on dissent in the region.  Aushev had been ritualistically persecuted by the Kremlin from the moment of Yevloyev’s killing (indeed, since well before it) in an obvious effort to intimdiate him into silence.  Just last month he was the victim of a kidnapping attempt.

So once again we see that the only way the crude thugs who operate the government of Russia can “win” an argument is at gunpoint.

October 26, 2009 — Contents

MONDAY OCTOBER 26 CONTENTS

(1)   EDITORIAL:  Neo-Soviet Russia, Gagged Again

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Russia vs. America, the Smackdown

(3)  Barbaric Election Fraud in Moscow

(4)  Putin’s Croatia Gambit

(5)  Kubok Kremlya Koshmar Kakoi-to!

(6)  Cartoon:  Mother Russia wants YOU! (to commit election fraud)

NOTE:  A new website called BoycottSochi.eu has been created to coordinate efforts to protest the Neo-Sovietization of Russia by refusing to participate in the 2014 Winter Olympiad currently scheduled to be held in Russia.  A link to the site now appears in our permanent sidebar.

EDITORIAL: Neo-Soviet Russia, once again Gagged

EDITORIAL

Neo-Soviet Russia, once again Gagged

Russia ranked #141 on the Reporters without Borders international press freedom survey in 2008, out of 173 nations surveyed — the bottom fifth of all countries in the world.  But if you thought Russia had noplace to go but up from there, you were very much mistaken.

EDITORIAL: Russia vs. America, The Smackdown

EDITORIAL

Russia vs. America, The Smackdown

84% of Americans are happy.  Russians? Just 2%.  Maybe that’s why Russia is a world leader in abortions and suicides.  Russia’s mortality rate is double that of the United States, and so is its AIDS infection rate.  Russia’s murder rate is five times higher. 

The number of Russian broadband users and Nobel prize winners and church-goers are in almost exactly the same proportion to their American counterparts.  Roughly twenty to one in each case. Russians have a lot to be unhappy about, it seems.

You can go on like this, on and endlessly on. Is it really a good idea for Russia to be provoking a new cold war with the United States?  A rational country would be seeking to curry favor, as we see it.

Barbaric election fraud in Moscow

Sergei Mitrokhin, chairman of the Yabloko party who served as a State Duma deputy from 1994 to 2003 and a Moscow City Duma deputy from 2005 to 2009, his pen dripping with acid, writing in the Moscow Times:

The level of falsifications in the Oct. 11 Moscow City Duma elections was unprecedented in modern Russian history. Officials did everything in their power to prevent opposition candidates from registering, and Yabloko was obstructed by local authorities and siloviki structures as early on as the signature collection stage.

Putin’s Croatia Gambit

The always indispensable Vladimir Socor reports, writing on the Jamestown Foundations’ Eurasia Daily Monitor:

With Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s direct backing, Gazprom and other Russian energy companies have embarked upon an effort to co-opt Croatia into their projects, including a fanciful South Stream gas transport project. Putin has personally offered a package of energy projects to Croatia’s Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor and President Stipe Mesic during informal meetings abroad on September 1 and September 25, respectively. Russian officials have followed up intensively at many levels since then (Vjesnik [Zagreb], September 19, 21). Moscow’s goal is to outflank Central Europe through Croatia, so as to block access routes for non-Russian energy supplies from Croatia’s Adriatic coast into Central Europe.