Must Read--Putin tactics foreshadow 9-11 LIHOP scenario

[RainDog]

wow. papau posted this on another thread, but it deserves its own. Thank you, papau!

a MUST READ...and this has been out there since before 9-11.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/225

Volume 47, Number 2 · February 10, 2000

Putin's War

By Sergei Kovalev

...And then, in September, explosions tore through Moscow and Volgodonsk—nighttime explosions in apartment buildings that killed well over two hundred people. Those explosions were a crucial moment in the unfolding of our current history. After the first shock passed, it turned out that we were living in an entirely different country, in which almost no one dared talk about a peaceful, political resolution of the crisis with Chechnya. How, it was asked, can you negotiate with people who murder children at night in their beds? War and only war is the solution! What we want—so went the rhetoric of many politicians, including Vladimir Putin—is the merciless extermination of the "adversary" wherever he may be, whatever the casualties, no matter how many unarmed civilians die in the process, no matter how many Russian soldiers must give up their lives for a military victory—just as long as we destroy the "wasp's nest of terrorists" once and for all. And it doesn't matter in the least who this "adversary" is—the fighters Basayev or Khattab, the elite guard of President Maskhadov (who had nothing to do with the raid into Dagestan, or, of course, with blowing up apartment buildings in Russian towns), or simply a member of a local militia who is defending his native villagers from Russian troops that suddenly swoop down on them.

Russian politicians began to use a new language—the argot of the criminal world. The recently appointed prime minister was the first to legitimate this new language by publicly announcing that we would "bury them in their own crap." It was after saying this that Putin's rating in the polls began to rise astronomically: finally there was a "tough guy" at the wheel.

Old terms took on a completely new meaning. Thus, the word "terrorist" quickly ceased to mean someone belonging to a criminal underground group whose goal was political murder. Now the word came to mean "an armed Chechen"—anywhere. Military reports from Chechnya put it plainly: "A group of three thousand terrorists has been surrounded in Gudermes"; "two and a half thousand terrorists were liquidated in Shali." And the war itself came to be called nothing less than the "antiterrorist special operation of the Russian troops."

In Moscow this autumn a huge roundup of people from the Caucasus region took place and the harassment continues today; there was talk of setting up "temporary holding points" in the Moscow suburbs "for individuals living in the capital without appropriate documentation"—i.e., for people from the Caucasus who don't have enough money to buy off the police. It seems that these "temporary holding points," or, to put it more simply, internment camps, were not set up after all—though the intention to do so was telling. But apart from a handful of human rights activists, no one was shocked by these barbaric ideas.

The position of human rights activists themselves changed and the name acquired a new meaning. Today, human rights workers and organizations are considered the country's primary internal enemies, a "fifth column" that is supported by Western foundations (read: secret services), and is conducting subversive activities against Russia. A series of articles on this theme was published not by some nationalist-patriotic yellow rag, but by none other than one of the preeminent newspapers of Russia's free press—Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

It turns out that it is the human rights activists and the "unpatriotic" press who are guilty of bringing about the defeat of the Russian army in the last Chechen war: their reports created sympathy for the sufferings of the Chechen people and thus confused public opinion. No one, by the way, accuses either human rights activists or the press of having circulated false or one-sided information. In effect, they are accused of objectively reporting on events.

[RainDog]

1. ...questions about who planted the bombs in Moscow

this was added by RBHam

"The Chechen War and bin Laden's Nukes"
by J. R. Nyquist

“Evidence of the number of nuclear weapons purchased by the Chechens for bin Laden varies between ‘a few’ (Russian intelligence) to ‘more than twenty’ (conservative Arab intelligence services). Most of the weapons were purchased in four former Soviet states – Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Russia. These weapons are a mix of suitcase bombs and tactical warhead bombs. An Arab nuclear scientist, a Western-educated expert who worked for Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program before he became Islamist, supervised the acquisition process for bin Laden and now runs the program for him. He is assisted by five Muslim Turkoman nuclear experts and a team of engineers and technicians, all of them Central Asian Muslims, whom they brought with them.”

YOSSEF BODANKSY, director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare
(from p. 330 of his 1999 book Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America)

A reader of this column recently wrote to say he’d shown How to Bring Down a Superpower to a friend. The friend was not impressed and said I was nuts for suggesting that Russia stirred up the Chechen and Afghan conflicts to facilitate the creation of a deniable terrorist proxy. “I generally skim by those unlikely conclusions myself,” wrote the reader, “because I think your basic message is right on target.” He added, “But you don’t have to make Russia in control of more world events than need be.”

The reader went on to ask what proof there is that Russia set up Chechen terrorists or Afghan terrorists as proxies. In games of mixed chance and skill the players (and those who analyze play) rarely have absolute proof of anything. Since deception is part of the game and proof is always obscured by lies, the good players develop an intuitive understanding of how the game works.

Using fragments of information a good player quickly recognizes the pattern behind his opponent’s moves. Only in this way can he adjust his counter-moves.

Viewed from this standpoint, there are some fascinating stories that have come out of Afghanistan and Chechnya in recent years. And there are a few highly suggestive facts. The most widely acknowledged fact is that Kremlin oligarch Boris Berezovsky gave the al Qaeda-connected Chechen terrorist leader Shamil Basayev $1 million prior to the 1999 Dagestan incursion that triggered the latest Chechen conflict.
more...

http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2002/0709.htm 

[RainDog]

2. did the "new" KGB plant the bombs?

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1571/14_16/61892243/p3/article.jhtml?term=

....I realize the source for this is not pc for DU, but sure sounds like something to consider to me...

Local Ryazan police say they found a bomb in the basement of a 13-story apartment block on the night of Sept. 22, 1999, at around 9 o'clock. The apartment residents saw several suspicious strangers hanging about, all of them Russian. According to one of the residents, Vladimir Vasiliev, the tags on the strangers' car did not match. The front tag had been covered over with a piece of paper and the Ryazan regional code had been scrawled across it, while the back tags displayed a Moscow number. Vasiliev called the police -- as did some of his neighbors.

When the local police arrived, they found in the basement of the block three large sugar sacks. When tested with a gas analyzer by bomb-squad officer Yuri Tkachenko, there was a positive reading for hexagen -- the explosive used in the Moscow bombs. Tkachenko was in no doubt that he was looking at a live bomb. Neither were his colleagues, including police inspector Andrei Chernyshev, the first to enter the basement.

Two of the strangers hanging around that night were arrested and immediately flashed FSB documents. On hearing of their detention, FSB superiors in Moscow intervened, secured their release and several hours later had the sugar sacks removed, though by accident they left the detonator in the possession of the local police. The next morning the FSB announced there never had been a bomb planted in Ryazan and that all of this was a training exercise. "When the press secretary of the FSB announced it was a training exercise, it felt extremely unpleasant," said Chernyshev.

Fake bomb or not, the FSB seems determined to squelch connections being made between sacks of sugar and hexagen. Russian paratroopers who were guarding a storehouse last autumn now say that they discovered hexagen in large sacks marked "sugar" at their base. The soldiers say they wanted to sweeten their tea and broke open one of the sacks. When the tea tasted strange, their supervisors had the white powder tested. Again, hexagen was found.

[RainDog]

3. wsw also questions whether bombs were planted by

Putin's "new KGB"

edited to shorten...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/aug2000/bomb-a21.shtml

Bomb explodes in the middle of Moscow—terrorism and politics in Russia

By Vladimir Volkov
21 August 2000

The bomb explosion which rocked the centre of Moscow on August 8 has once again vividly highlighted the political instability of Russian society.

...The strength of the explosion is estimated at between 0.4 to 1.5 kilograms of TNT. The bomb had no outer shell but was filled with sharpened pieces of metal. According to some reports the bomb contained material which was also found in bombs which exploded last year in blocks of flats situated in the suburbs of Moscow.

....By the evening of the day of the explosion the vice chairman of the FSB, V. Pronitchev, announced on state radio the arrest of two Caucasian suspects—one from Chechnya and the other from Dagestan. But it could not be proven that they were involved in the attack. The only evidence police had to implicate the two was Islamic religious literature they had on their persons.

Over the past months there have been continuous reports in the Russian media of supposed preparations for terrorist attacks by
Under such circumstances one can only speculate as to who was responsible for the explosion. It is even possible that domestic opponents of Putin or forces within the government were involved.

The circumstances surrounding the bomb attacks, which devastated two blocks of flats last year with many casualties, have never been clarified. There are persistent rumours that the secret service FSB was behind the attacks, and there was even some evidence to substantiate this. A number of FSB agents were caught red-handed as they were preparing another bomb attack. They talked their way out of trouble, however, by claiming that they were just practising an exercise to test the alertness of the general population.

Vladimir Putin was able to profit from the bomb attacks at that time, as they provided him with an excuse for the war against Chechnya and for increased domestic repression....

[dolgoruky]

4. Bombings Ahead of Elections

It now seems quite usual for there to be bombings or other "terrorist" activities before elections. They "war" in Chechnya is no different. They are two sides of the same coin. Create an enemy, demonise them, and then appeal to the population to give you the mandate (and the money)to get tough with them. However, it is also quite common for these manufactured enemies to occaisionally come back and bite you on the arse.

[RainDog]

5. As Ron Paul noted, along with many others

the PNAC-ers are "reformed" Trotskyites...which seems to mean they're now Stalinists.

yes, two sides of the same coin...two authoritarian govts who create the "need" for a strong-arm leader to validate their governments.