The latest sentence given to Khorokovsky has been the pretext for yet another immense outpouring of Western hypocrisy. Just to quote a recent BBC article:
US state department spokesman Mark Toner said Washington was concerned by the apparent “abusive use of the legal system for improper ends, particularly now that Khodorkovsky and [former business partner Platon] Lebedev have been sentenced to the maximum penalty”. Later an unnamed senior US administration official, quoted by Reuters news agency, said the sentencing might complicate Russia’s expected entry to the World Trade Organisation in 2011.
(…)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “disappointed” by the sentence. “The impression remains that political motives played a role in the trial,” she said in a statement.
(…)
And UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said he was deeply concerned and urged Russia “to respect the principles of justice and apply the rule of law in a non-discriminatory and proportional way”. “In the absence of this the UK and much of the international community will regard such a trial as a retrograde step,” Mr Hague added.
What the hell is going on here?! Khodorkosky is just one of many so-called ‘oligarchs’ who stole money from the Russian nation like all of them did. And like most of them, he is a Jew. And like most of them, he tried to mess with Putin and his power base. So? Why is he deserving of so much crocodile tears?
The European Court of Human Rights does not see a problem, neither does Amnesty International, or HWR, or anybody in Israel for that matter (at least that I am aware of). Yet the West is whining and whining about Khodorkovsky…
Gone and forgotten are the accusations about ‘Putin’ ordering the poisoning of Yushchenko, the poisoning of Litvinenko, the killing of Politkovskaia and all the rest of the idiotic “Putin the KGB murderer” narrative. Now its “Putin is crushing his political opponents”. Fine. But is that big news? Let’s look at the record here:
1) General Lev Rokhlin, one of the best Russian military commanders who single handedly rescued Eltsin’s regime for total failure in Chechnya: killed by his “insane wife” as soon as he openly opposed the “United Russia” Party.
2) General Gennady Troshev, another of the very best Russian military commanders, credited with winning the 2nd Chechen war. Conveniently dies in a rather bizarre air crash as soon as he became too popular.
3) General Alexander Lebed, not a favorite of mine for sure, but popular for a while in Russia for saving the Trans-Dniester Republic from a Moldavian assault and for stopping the 1st Chechen war (a disastrous decision in my opinion).
4) General Vladimir Shamanov, became extremely popular for his capable performance in Chechnia and for protecting the Russian Airborne Forces from the so-called “reforms”. Miraculously survives a more than bizarre traffic accident.
5) Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov: former Spetsnaz Brigade commander. Charged twice (!) with attempting to murder Anatoly Chubais, acquitted in a jury trial twice (!) and now charged with no less than armed insurrection. Conveniently for the Kremlin, this accusation is not tried in a jury trial, but by professional judges.
I will end my list here (and before I continue, please note that I put the Wikipedia links only for your general info, not because I consider the Wikipedia entries about these generals are remotely trustworthy. In fact, all of Wikipedia is hopelessly biased and has a clear political slant – in this case, against the aforementioned generals). My point is that a long list of Russian generals die or are otherwise clearly crushed by the Kremlin but nobody shows any concern about them. Could it be because, unlike Khodorkovsky, they were trying to make Russia stronger?
All these military men had one thing in common: they were perceived as a threat to the Kremlin and they were simply (but very skillfully) murdered (or jailed, or seriously injured). This is how Putin and his clique of ex-KGB and “nouveau Mafia” thugs deal with their political opponents – ruthlessly. Yet, in this case, nobody whines. But when an undisputed thief and crook like Khodorkovsky gets slapped with a medium prison sentence the West is whining to high heaven. Why?
The answer is simple: like Berezovsky, Politkovskaya or Yushchenko, Khorodkovsky was a de-facto agent of Western political and oil interests. What he did besides embezzling money was actively assist the West in the plunder of Russian natural resources. In this sense, Khodorkovsky committed the same mistake as another notorious thief, Dzhokhar Dudaev, who was the Kremlin’s darling until he dared to defy Moscow and seek to keep Chechnya’s resources for himself. Then the Kremlin started a full-scale war to get rid of him.
The fact is that Putin, Medvedev & Co. are ruthless politicians who do crush their enemies in one way or another. When Eltsin his Jewish oligarch bosses were in power they were even more ruthless, much to the West’s delight. Remember how Eltsin’s tanks shot at the Russian Parliament building? Over 5’000 people died in this ‘democratic coup’, way more than on 9-11, yet the West applauded with both hands. And how many people died in the Chechen war?
Under Putin and Medvedev the oligarchs were finally given the boot by the ex-KBG officer and ex-Gazprom boss who, unlike Eltsin and the oligarchs, at least managed to return Russia into a semi-powerful position in just one decade. This is why the West is really whining: Khodorkovsky is not only a Jewish oligarch, he is the last vestige of a bygone era when Russia was a Western colony open to pillage, political manipulation and utterly incapable of standing up for itself.
This is why the sentencing of Khodorkovsky is great news for Russia – it sends a very simple message to the West: Russia is no longer your colony.
The Saker
Politovskaya was an agent?
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, that is an off hand remark that really irks me.
Great article, Saker. But I doubt that Gennady Troshev was killed by the Kremlin: he died in the crash of Aeroflot-Nord 821, a regular airline flight, and I doubt the leadership would sacrifice 87 people just to kill one man. There are lots of more efficient ways of killing Troshev if they wanted to.
Though unrelated, Sibir Airliners Flight 1812, that one supposedly shot down by Ukraine by mistake in 2001, was much weirder. Do you have a bet on this one?
@AmericanGoy: Politovskaya was an agent?
Not necessarily in the sense of somebody formally recruited, or even recruited consciously. But objectively, in the sense of being an instrument of Western intelligence services and their support for Chechen thugs, yes, absolutely. Ditto for Kovalev and the rest of them “democratic” dissidents and human rights activists. Just like in the Soviet times, 99% of the so-called “dissidents” were just pawns of the West in a big political game. Being the ‘victim’ of a ‘failed poisoning’ is just about the most common mark of being such a pawn. Ask yourself a simple question: how hard would it be for the Kremlin to have her killed in Chechnya if they had wanted to? Yep, she was an agent, whether she was aware of it or not.
@Carlo: we live in the world were 9-11 was an inside job and where there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that the Moscow city apartment bombings were not the action of Chechen, but of the FSB. Whether the FSB did it or not, there is no doubt in my mind that the folks in the Kremlin would not hesitate to bring down and airliner to get rid of a dangerous political opponent. I can’t prove that, of course, but that is my belief.
@American Goy and Carlo: sorry to end the year on such a cynical note, but life spent observing Russian politics have left me very disillusioned and cynical indeed.
Happy New Year to both of you and all the best for 2011!
Kind regards,
The Saker
@Carlo:Sibir Airliners Flight 1812, that one supposedly shot down by Ukraine by mistake in 2001, was much weirder. Do you have a bet on this one?
No. Some folks have said that this was a terrorist bomb. Dunno. Would be some coincidence of a bomb exploding right when the Ukies are busy shooting their S-200s. Also, the Ukies eventually pleaded guilty after first denying it. Who and why would they be covering up for? I even heard the rumor that this was an Israeli operation to kill some Russian scientists working on some nuclear program for some putatively anti-Israeli regime. I doubt that, I just don’t see the Israelis openly messing with Russia which, unlike the USA, is not an Israeli colony, and they know that.
Do you have any theory about this one?
Aren’t Putin and his KGB mafia associates just as brutal and ruthless as Yeltsin’s oligarchs? Is there any evidence that the Kremlin cares more about the welfare of the Russian people now than it did in the Nineties?
@Robert:Aren’t Putin and his KGB mafia associates just as brutal and ruthless as Yeltsin’s oligarchs? Is there any evidence that the Kremlin cares more about the welfare of the Russian people now than it did in the Nineties?
I would say two things about that:
a) Eltsin and his oligarchs are at least 50% responsible for the first Chechen war, and for the butchery of totally unprepared Russian conscripts who were sent there without a modicum of training or political support. I would argue that Eltsin and his clique have more more Russian blood on their hands than Dudaev and his thugs. Furthermore, Eltsin and his oligarchs did kill 5’000+ people in Moscow in 1993. I know that the official figures are much lower, but I was there when it happened, and I had access to, shall we say, non-official data. In the course of about 5 days of combat in the entire Moscow metropolitan area over 5000 people died in numerous and never investigated incidents. There was MUCH more going on than the shootouts at the Ostankino TV center or the tanks shooting at the Parliament building (I personally witnessed a machine gun battle right under my windows 4 days after the “main event”). That kind of large-scale butchery, more than 9-11 in NY, did not happen under Putin & Co.
b) the fact is that the welfare of the Russian people improved IMMENSELY under Putin & Co. Of course, high oil and gas prices did help, but at least Putin & Co. did not fill their pockets like Chernomyrdin did. Now, I am NOT saying that Putin & Co. did that out of the kindness out their hearts. They might well have calculated that improving the welfare of the Russian people was essential to their own power and, if they did such a calculation, they were right. Western media be damned, the fact is that Putin IS very popular in Russia, more than Medvedev I would argue.
So yes, the contrast between 1991-2000 and 2000-2010 could not be any stronger. The oligarch’s nineties were an absolute horror for Russia, on par with WWII many say, whereas the Putin/Medvedev years were marked by an almost miraculous recovery.
Please do not mistake the above for an expression of love for Putin or, even much less so, for Medvedev. There are many many really bad things happening in Russia nowadays, and I am very critical of the regime and what I call its ‘re-Sovietization”, but I have to honestly admit that Putin did a lot of very good things for Russia. I particularly support Putin’s foreign policy (I am not happy with Medvedev on that front). I am particularly appalled at the anti-military pro-cops internal policies of Medvedev. I also loathe the steady flow of rehabilitation of Soviet and communist symbols. But all in all, its a no brainer for me. Things became immeasurably better after Putin came to power.
Happy New Year and all the best for 2011 to you and your loved ones!
The Saker
Well, the 1999 bombings (if it was really done by the FSB) had the purpose of bringing the public opinion against the Chechen separatists and together with the siloviki. But I don’t see the point of bringing down an airliner just to kill one person. If Troshev was in a government or military helicopter (like Lebed), then yes, it would be possible. Also, flight 821 crashed due to pilot error, and not technical malfunctions, so it’s hard it was a sabotage. It’s exactly the same argument as why the Kremlin didn’t kill Litvinenko: there are thousands of ways of killing one person, why choose exactly one that would kill dozens of innocent persons, and would be harder to disguise?
Anyway, this point is not important: the Kremlin didn’t kill Troshev, but the deaths of Lebed and Rokhlin are very suspicious, as the accident suffered by Shamanov and the persecution of Kvachkov.
@Carlo: I just don’t think that bringing down an airliner is a) difficult for the Kremlin b) morally repugnant for them. This being said, I am only speculating here, I have no proof at all, not even strong leads.
Happy New Year!
@AmericanGoy
Why all the sources she used were NED, HRW pro-Chechen sources even attending pro-Chechen organisations/events in Europe like Sweden.
Her background is a little suspect daughter of Soviet elites and a human right lawyer in New York for Jews émigrés during the 80’s with the Jackson-Vanik period if I remember which was also used as a conduit for organised crime and the so called “Russian” mafia to expand into the US.
@Carlo
The most logical view is that Berezovsky and his contacts within the security service carried out the attack like Kleibnakov believed given his direct financial contacts to Khattab, Basayeav and Chechen militants.
It is Berezovsky that is the leading figure that is pushing and promoting the FSB false flag narrative.
I don’t think they needed the apartment bombings for the Chechen conflict it was pretty apparent that it was going to happen anyway and the incursions by Basayeav and Khattab and the mass training network in Afghanistan, Turkey and connections to Kosovo and European crime network that they were preparing for a second war since the end of the first one.
Paul Murphy commented on it in this interview posted on his RETWA site:
”I would like to digress briefly and comment on the theory that the FSB intentionally blew up the apartment buildings as a pretext to send Russian troops back into Chechnya and guarantee Putin’s presidential election bid. I think this idea is pure fantasy. I lived in Moscow at the time and heard the rumor within days after the terror attack. The Chechen president’s inability to control the actions of extremists like Basayev and stop criminal gangs from kidnapping Russians and foreigners to sell them as slaves or collect millions of dollars in ransom—not to mention Basayev’s declaration of holy war on Russia and his invasion of Dagestan–gave the Kremlin plenty of reason to take military action against Chechnya in 1999. Why would the FSB have needed to blow up apartment buildings as pretext?”
http://retwa.com/interviews.cfm
@VINEYARDSAKER:
General Lev Rokhlin
“On July 4, 1998, few months after he tried to stage a mass protest of army servicemen, Lev Rokhlin was shot dead in his bed. Rokhlin’s wife Tamara was convicted by the Russian court for her husband’s murder in 2005, but she continued to insist he was killed by a group of masked men who broke into their home.[2] According to Alexander Litvinenko, the murder was actually organized by Russian secret services.
Although she was convicted in 2005 he was killed in 98 not under Putin’s rule and long before United Russia was created.
Litvinenko used as a source that the secret service killed him the same man who said KGB were behind 9/11 and that they created Al Qaeda.
General Gennady Troshev
Nothing in it would indicate why FSB would kill him in fact he sound like a nationalist that is most likely he was killed by Chechen terrorists.
General Alexander Lebed
Mathew Raphael Johnson wrote a piece on the Russian Mafia indicating that he was killed because he was advocating a union between China and Siberia.
http://iamthewitness.com/books/Raphael.Johnson/The.Judeo-Russian.Mafia.pdf
General Vladimir Shamanov
Nothing indicates in t6he article why Moscow would want to harm him again another likely Chechen hit.
Ultra-nationalist accused of war crimes.
Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov:
Chubais is a shock therapist working against Putin and advocating Rothschild interests.
@Jack: he was killed in 98 not under Putin’s rule and long before United Russia was created.
Yep. I goofed :-) I was referring to the movement “Наш дом – Россия” (Our House – Russia) and not to “Единая Россия” (United Russia). All these patriotic sounding parties seem to have confused me…
As for Troshev, he was a political threat to the Kremlin because of his very outspoken accusations against the corrupt politicians and generals in Moscow who profited from the wars in Chechnya.
Lebed: I don’t think that Lebed was killed because of some goofy statements he made. He was simply something the Kremlin hates: a popular general (at least for a while until people really understood how disastrous, if not treasonous, the Khasavyurt agreement was for Russia, the Russian military and, I would argue, for the Chechen people).
advocating Rothschild interests
Hahaha! This is a quite funny statement considering that he is a first rate Jew-basher…
Check out this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQymH4jHkyI
Anyway, happy new year to you jack, and all the best for 2011!!
@VINEYARDSAKER:
As for Troshev, he was a political threat to the Kremlin because of his very outspoken accusations against the corrupt politicians and generals in Moscow who profited from the wars in Chechnya.
More reason to believe he was killed by a corrupt mafia faction within FSB and mafia not affiliated with Putin or national interests like how Kleibnakov was wacked.
As for Lebed that is more speculation than hard facts
Hahaha! This is a quite funny statement considering that he is a first rate Jew-basher…
I haven’t a clue what the video is about but Chubais IS a shock therapist working against Putin and advocating Rothschild interests.
Check this video out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud8gz-z4_HI#t=02m06s
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I take it your new job is going well and if it isn’t look on the bright side the global economy is likely to collapse before half way through the year (Euro might not last until the end of January) so we are all pretty much screwed.
@jack: dude, I am getting senile :-( not only do I confuse Russian political parties, but I managed to misread your post. I managed to conclude that you said that *Kvachkov* is a a shock therapist for the Rothschild. Had a read your post with a modicum of concentration, I would have noticed that you never said that, saying instead that *Chubais* was a shock therapist for the Rothschild – which I would only agree with.
Man, my brain is really getting fried (which is rather pathetic at age 47). Wonder if I can get a transplant somewhere, LOL!
BTW – my job is going better, at least so far, but I have no illusions -yes, we ARE all screwed and the economy is going down the tubes, no doubt in my mind.
Anyway, all the best for 2011 to you and your loved ones :-)
Worth mentioning that he was a frontman for Rothschild interests in Russia and there off shore Menatep bank holdings in the Isle of Man, his dealing in the Caucasus and Rothschild/British oil interests or that he got arrested because he tried to commit treason by signing over YUKOS oil interests to Exxon Mobile.
ACRES: Right, he imprisoned him. Was that a sort of running up the flag to tell the rest of them what was going to happen?
HUDSON: Khodorkovsky not only had been the most notorious tax evader in Russia, but having privatized Russian oil, he was then about to turn around and sell his company to Exxon so that he could take the money out of the country in much the same way that Berezovsky and other Russian oligarchs had done.
This would have essentially sold out Russia’s natural resources to its major Cold War enemy, the United States. Russia would have been economically destroyed had Khodorkovsky gone through with it. Khodorkovsky also announced that he was going to run for president and be the main funder of the right-wing Pinochetista party there. It actually was called “The Party of Right Forces.” So of course Putin threw him in jail, quite rightly.
http://easterneuropewatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-khodorkovsky-is-portrayed-as.html
This is not related to Khoderkovsky affair but interesting articles I found on the net.
WikiLeaks fallout: Iraq War Logs throw new light on the Nick Berg mystery.
http://www.brushtail.com.au/july_10_on/wikileak_iraq_logs-nick_berg_arrest.html
Although I think he was a terrorist handler for the Mossad but an interesting suggestion he was killed by US Special forces anti-terrorist mercenaries established by Rumsfeld and covered up there tracks by producing the execution video.
Another great article by Dennis Hopsickers of CIA history of drugs trafficking and the Honduran military and government.
http://www.madcowprod.com/12062010.htm
After getting “softer” with the opposition recently, in the last days the Russian government again turned “tougher” against them, and quite a number of opposition leaders were detained in the last “Dissent March” on December 31:
“Boris Nemtsov and Ilya Yashin of the Solidarity movement, Konstantin Kosyakin of the Leftist Front and Eduard Limonov, leader of the Another Russia opposition party, were arrested over disobedience to police officers during December 31 rallies at Moscow’s central Triumfalnaya Square.”
Now a Ekho Moskvy journalist has also been detained.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110103/162035079.html
I think the only explanation for this is the fight between a faction that support Medvedev and another Putin. This probably will get hotter this year, as in 2012 there will be presidential elections in Russia.
By the way, I used to like RIA Novosti, but now its staff is full of pro-Westerners. There is even one that recently began to write a weekly column called “Due West”, to defend openly Russian integration with NATO and closer relations with the US and EU.