Friday, December 30, 2005
Russia and Islam and the threat to the West
History and Demography ensure that Russia will support radical Islam: at least until its own non-Islamic population dies out
by StFerdIIIFascist tendencies, abetted by a nationalist media color foreign policy. Like Fascist regimes in the past, current day Russia feels besieged by evil Westerners – intent on destroying the motherland. Russian paranoia cites NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe; US military bases in Central Asia; US forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and soon other Middle Eastern states; and supposed Western meddling in the 2004 Ukrainian election, as proof that the West is hostile to Russian interests. This poor analysis is used by the government, through media owned outlets to excite nationalist feeling and state support. Such xenophobia of course affects Russian politics and policy setting – an ‘un-virtuous circle’ of state manipulated racism.
The Russians have long been the allies of militant Islam and have a dim and unenlightened view of the US demand for Islamic democratic reform. Indeed the Russians have been amongst the biggest detractors of Israel’s right to existence and have openly allied themselves with the Arab-Palestinian cause against Israel. Russian alliances with Islam and China, including partnering with a mad mullah regime in Iran that demands the liquidation of both the Anglo-Saxon powers and Israel, and Russia’s extremely nationalistic interest in controlling Central Asian oil development and distribution, presage a rather cool if not cold relationship between Putin’s Tsarist-like empire and the West. Russia will be militant Islam’s partner either covertly or overtly depending in part on the state of affairs of the increasingly vocal and energized Russian Muslim republics, as well as on oil and Russian obsession with countering US power in Central Asia and the Middle East. Russia will support China as well, as long as the Chinese are willing to buy Russian military hardware and help invest and develop Russian energy supplies.
Such anti-Western posturing is of course nothing new for Russia. The Russian Soviets supported Islamic terror regimes, cells and developed terrorist networks to sell drugs, attack Western assets and form an Arab-Islamic ‘bloc’, much like the Nazi’s did, to oppose the West in the Middle East and beyond. Russian money, arms, soldiers, advisers and politicians have since 1945 openly backed the fascist Arabic-Islamic states using them in their struggle against US power. For all the current rhetoric by Tsar Putin and Russia that it is a US ally on terror, the Russians have done very little to back up their words with deeds. The Russians opposed the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq – the former for geo-political reasons and the latter because Russia was making too much money from Hussein. Indeed the Russians outside of Chechnya have no interest in fighting militant Islam and will never join an international force to do so. Russia has replaced Nazism and along with France and Germany is a prime investor and financier in Islamic terror and regime support.
Iraq is instructive of Russian perfidy and double dealing regarding Islam. During the 1990s it was no secret that the Russians were making billions of dollars per annum from illegal sales to Hussein’s Iraq and had huge oil concessions granted by Hussein to Russian oil firms. Payoffs by Hussein were made to former Russian foreign minister Primakov [about U$2 million] as well as other top Russian officials and Russian troops, equipment, bombs and heavy armor were discovered in Iraq by coalition forces during the 2003 Iraq war. The Russians with their UN security council veto obstructed the US desire to go to war after 17 UN resolutions were broken by Iraq, simply out of avarice and economic advantage. In this vein I would not expect Russia to desist from selling military hardware to Islamic regimes, indeed the Russians are very active in Iran in providing nuclear energy, oil development and military sales. Expect Russian economic greed and Central Asian political and social concerns to be predominant in their foreign policy analysis and Russia will do anything to avoid a US led regime change of the fascist Mullahs in Teheran. This says nothing of the potential of the Russian mafia to sell nuclear parts, secrets or warheads to the highest Islamic bidder.
Ironically however although Russia has always positioned itself as a friend of radical and fascist Islam it will face a new and potentially fatal threat from its own Muslim population. Along with the increasing power and violence of Islam within the Russian Federation, there is another and quite serious source of Russian decline which will cause foreign and domestic convulsions, namely; demography. Each year Russia's population of 140 million declines by one million people. However the Muslim sects which constitute 20-25 million, are increasing by about 1 million per annum. This means that ‘white’ Russia is dying and Islamic Russia is thriving. At this rate, by 2050 its population will have shrunk by a third and Muslims will be 50 % of the population. If you don’t think that this colors foreign policy or the war in Chechnya then you don’t understand the power of demography or of ethnic compositions.
Consider this: the white Russian male life expectancy is about 58 and falling, versus 75 in the USA and Canada. White Russians are simply a dying breed. This decline in the white Russian population is of grave concern not only to the Kremlin, but also the West. One cause of this slow extermination is according to a Russian Duma [parliament] report ‘[the] stress generated by people's lack of confidence in their futures and those of their children.’ Another is alcoholism. The Russian suicide rate is quadruple that of Europe. Muslims on the other hand are thriving. Muslim women have 5 children on average while Russian women are having one or less. White Russia is simply not procreating enough to maintain its population and combined with a drastically high death rate, we might witness the Islamicization of Russia or at least the disengagement of the Central Asian republics from the declining white power of Moscow. This demographic change in Russia’s population, as Mark Steyn observes, makes for a grim prognosis:
“Russia is literally dying. From a population peak in 1992 of 148 million, it will be down to below 130 million by 2015 and thereafter dropping to perhaps 50 or 60 million by the end of the century, a third of what it was at the fall of the Soviet Union. It needn't decline at a consistent rate, of course. But I'd say it's more likely to be even lower than 50 million than it is to be over 100 million. The longer Russia goes without arresting the death spiral, the harder it is to pull out of it, and when it comes to the future most Russian women are voting with their foetus: 70 per cent of pregnancies are aborted.
At a time when Russian men already have a life expectancy in the mid-50s -- lower than in Bangladesh -- they're about to see AIDS cut them down from the other end, killing young men and women of childbearing age, and with them any hope of societal regeneration. By 2010, AIDS will be killing between a quarter and three-quarters of a million Russians every year. It will become a nation of babushkas, unable to muster enough young soldiers to secure its borders, enough young businessmen to secure its economy or enough young families to secure its future. True, there are regions that are exceptions to these malign trends, parts of Russia that have healthy fertility rates and low HIV infection. Can you guess which regions they are? They start with a 'Mu-' and end with a '-slim'.
So the world's largest country is dying and the only question is how violent its death throes are. Yesterday's Russia was characterised by Churchill as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Today's has come unwrapped: it's a crisis in a disaster inside a catastrophe.“
White Russia will drink, abort and murder herself into national decline and eventual destruction. So what will happen to its nuclear warheads, its borders, its energy, its military, and its partnership in the war on terror? If Russia disintegrates and unravels and the mystery becomes not mysterious but dangerous what will the West do? Will we let the Chinese walk in and gorge themselves on Russia’s Far Eastern oil and energy supplies? Will we allow the Russians to fail in their fight against fascist Jihadists in the Caucasus which will embolden Islam elsewhere? Will we simply stand agape while the Russian mob sells off nukes and know-how to the highest Islamic bidder? Western self interest dictates that we take the coming chaos in Russia quite seriously.
In relation to the slow death of white Russia consider the following: the Muslim population in Russia is on average quite young and the demographic explosion of Muslim youth, who are seemingly more open to radical Islam then their parents, will unsettle the Russian empire, especially in Central Asia. It is not a coincidence that the Russians are very keen on alliances with Turkey and Iran. The last thing the Russian tsarist elite needs is a Muslim uprising in Central Asia. To quell the spread of radical Islam Russian national interest dictates that a soft policy towards Iran the chief investor in world wide terror, and the supposedly secular Turks, will aid them in keeping their own Muslims quiescent. Given the long history of Islamic terror and Islamic intolerance this is a wrong headed policy but nonetheless Islam will exert a great influence on Russian policy. It is open to debate if the Russians will keep their Islamic republics within the greater Russian empire – but you can bet on the Russians using all means including economics, force, and war, to keep their empire and the oil rich areas of Central Asia intact.
So is Russia the West’s ‘friend’? The short answer is no. The longer one is that Russia has redounded back to the days of Soviet control, reconstituting its empire under the aegis of complete state domination. Putin is implementing Gorbachev’s original plan and he won’t fail. The doctrine of Communism is gone, but the ideology of Putinism based on ethno national-socialism is alive and well. Russian chauvinism, a leadership cult, the rewriting of history, great power pride, oil and energy resources and a corrupt, controlled and eastern facing regime has little real interest in the Western ideals of freedom, division of powers and democracy. Putin is simply the latest in a long, long line of Russian tsars and a far more successful keeper of state control than was Gorbachev. But even when Putin exits and his cult is passed on to an anointed and non-democratically elected successor, don’t expect the new Tsar to change course. The gang running the Kremlin and benefiting from controlling its huge Empire will not desire any reforms relating to democracy, transparency, Western styled liberal politics or principled foreign policy. Anyone expecting such is a dreamer.
Given this history is it any wonder then that when talking to the average Russian you have a sense that they come from a different world? They and their Oriental empire share nothing in common with the Western experience. Whatever the various failings of Western practices, and there are quite a few, it is an experience in virtual reality manipulation to transpose the disaster that is modern Russia onto Western nation states or to ascribe to the West the ills that plague Russia. Yet from such a place and mentality the rule of a Putin is not only possible but inevitable. From such a history Orientalism is guaranteed. Putin personalities do not spring from un-ploughed earth, they simply grow from prepared soil.
The entire history of Russia is thus one long testimony to the enduring power of cultism, fascist ideals and anti-liberal policies. In that regard don’t expect the Russians to become a Western ally any time soon. In fact expect the opposite. The Russians, as they did in Iraq and are doing again in Iran by supplying the Iranians technology and military hardware, will form selfish alliances with Islamic nations for economic and political profit, and to keep their fast growing 25 million Muslims dormant. Russia in its latest national-socialist phase will do as little as possible to aid the West in the war on Islamic terror while all the while trying to selectively use Western investment, monies and skills to upgrade their own economy enabling the regime to further crush liberalism in Russia and tighten its grip on power. Putin is just simply a more successful Gorbachev.