Wednesday, May 31, 2006

The Criminal Mafia state of Russia

As bad as the Communists

by StFerdIII

In what passes for intelligent discourse on international events Russia is viewed by the post-modern elite as a ‘friend’. The Russians are deemed to be allies in the war against terror, partners in energy, and a bulwark against Chinese expansionism. Yet Russia is not a nation state but a collection of mafia and criminal interests ruled by the ex-KGB that have, since the days of Yeltsin, engaged in the largest theft of resources in human history. Russia is not a friend, nor an ally, but an unstable criminal regime that is repressive, dismissive of its own people and openly hostile to Western interests. Russia is simply another oriental styled fascism that has never cared for its own people, nor for the ideas of freedom and progress. In fact the Russian state murders its own people. In this context Putin and his assorted criminal gangs are not ‘friends’ but ideological foes.

A score of great books detail the unbelievable depth, depravity and cruelty of the Russian state, written by insiders and journalists with long years of experience inside the not-so-new Russian nation. The works include; ‘Inside Putin's Russia’, ‘Black Earth: A Journey through Russia after the Fall’, ‘Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State’, ‘Russia in Search of Itself’, and ‘Putin's Russia’. They detail quite convincingly the criminal death and one party leadership cult that is Russia. The long suffering Russian people have never experienced the philosophical, economic, spiritual and technological revolutions of the West. They live in an another world, a land of one party fascism, war upon innocent civilians and an Orwellian reverence for turning lies into purported truths. Russia has and never will be a Western friendly nation. It is another failed oriental despotism.

Russian chaos occurred directly after the fall of Communism. The ending of one fascism was simply replaced by the beginning of another. One party ideological fascism was officially substituted by one party criminal fascism. As two great books on this chaos minutely detail [Black Earth: A Journey through Russia after the Fall’, and ‘Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State’] the Yeltsin era, hailed in the West as the beginning of democratic reform and the long march towards normalcy, was anything but. Yeltsin’s rule was the beginning of the largest criminal takeover of state resources in the history of man. Under Yeltsin the rule of law was never created. Legal institutions never have and still do not operate in Russia. Without the rule of law and transparency in government and private processes criminality flourishes. The Russian people after 70 years of abusive fascist socialism were not inclined to morality. Without a spiritual rebirth after 1991, and without strong legal processes to protect the nation’s assets the state was set for the transfer of trillions of dollars – illegally – into the hands of the Yeltsin family and its ruling elitist friends.

Yeltsin ‘privatised’ large parts of the former Soviet economic empire. The idea was good but the problem was that the so-called privatization process was nothing more than a transfer of wealth to those who supported the ruling Yeltsin gang. Whole sectors of the economy including the largest firms and the most sensitive sectors were given for a pittance to financial concerns run by friends of Yeltsin. Yeltsin had never been much interested in parliamentary, legal or business reform. He and his gang were more interested in looting the country of any and all assets. Though some lip-serviced reforms were pushed through such as direct elections; freedom of speech and media discussion; tax reform and anti-corruption bills, for the most part the Yeltsin gang divided up the spoils of Russia between itself and those friendly to the regime.

Khordokovsky for example was a 36 year old founder of the bank ‘Menatep’ which was funded by the state’s budget. The state funded its capital and allowed Khordokovsky to buy Yukos the largest Russian energy concern for about 1/40 of its real value. In return the Yeltsin elite received kick-backs and bribes and interest off of the state budget. The result is that Yukos and the ‘oligarchs’ and friends of Yeltsin became incredibly rich and since they controlled state monies had every incentive not to pay state salaries or support state programs such as health care and pensions. In parts of Russia people almost starved to death as salaries and pensions were not paid. Electricity grids were allowed to deteriorate; energy shortages were common; and hospitals never received badly needed funds. People literally starved or died in Russia thanks to the appropriation of its wealth by an unelected political elite and its friends. Khordokovsky for example refused to transfer tax money to Siberian cities which badly needed the funds to pay local salaries and fund welfare programs. He preferred of course to keep it himself.

In the end the oligarchs ran into trouble because they overstepped their agreement with the Kremlin which was basically ‘you make lots of money, give us bribes and kickbacks and stay out of politics’. Khordokovsky and others foolishly decided to enter politics and they have ended up either in jail like Khordokovsky or dead like other oligarchs and their families. The criminal mafia allied with political interests is a vicious fact of life in Russia. Countless murders of journalists and businessmen who challenge the state occur each year. The Yeltsin era was famous for its lawlessness. Now under Putin the same terror reigns but business interests once supported by the Kremlin are just as likely to be targeted.

Putin was Yeltsin’s chosen, non-democratically elected successor mostly due to the fact that Putin and his gang gave the Yeltsin family, which stole somewhere around U$5 billion, amnesty from any and all investigations and prosecutions. Now Putin and his ex-KGB gang have firmly arrested any semblance of democratic reform. Russia is now a one party state with a media completely controlled by the Kremlin. It is not hard to imagine what propagandist nonsense blares forth from the Kremlin controlled media.

Lastly and most importantly the criminality of the Russian state is embedded in the attacks on its own people. In 1999 on the threshold of the Yeltsin transfer of power to Putin the government was in serious trouble. Yeltsin had 2 % approval ratings and criminality was running amok while people literally were dying thanks to state neglect and the rape of resources. The Chechens in 1996 had won semi autonomy for a Muslim statelet, but as with most Muslim radicals they knew little of how to build a proper functioning state. Though a failure Chechnya was relatively quiet in 1999, until the ruling Russian elite precipitated the 2nd Chechen war which has killed about 100.000 civilians and about 30.000 young Russian soldiers.

The method to start the war? The KGB or FSB as it is now called bombed and destroyed 4 apartment complexes in Moscow and other cities. All the complexes were in working class neighbourhoods and all bear the imprint of FSB demolition skill including the use of FSB-only controlled hexogen chemicals. A fifth bombing in the city of Ryazan was stopped by alert residents who noticed suspicious figures outside the apartment building and notified the police. The 3 suspects were later picked up by local police and surprise – they were FSB agents. In the basement of the apartment building local police and bomb experts found hexogen, detonators and enough TNT to destroy the building and the 500 people inside. The bomb was set to go off at 5:30 am. The Kremlin invented the story that the bombing apparati were designed to see if people were ‘alert’ and that the sacks of TNT were really sugar. Even in Russia not many people believe such a story.

A state that will starve its own people; deny energy to its population; withhold supplies from its hospitals and wantonly kill innocents to foment a war is the kind of regime that the long suffering Russian people are only too familiar with. The list of state atrocities against Russian innocents is endless – the war in Chechnya itself is a case study of Russian military corruption and misdeeds. Yet the West spends nary a moment truly analyzing a geo-politically important country. Cheney in his recent criticism of Russia has it right. A state that uses energy supplies to further its foreign policy preferences for a greater Russian empire; openly supports Islam against Israel; murders innocents in Moscow and beyond; and allows criminal mafia to controls its politics, business and resource wealth is just another example of failed Russian fascism and orientalism. It is not an ally.

Just be thankful you don’t have to live there and remember that this criminal regime has a veto on the UN security council.