The coming 'crisis' in the Caucasus: Part 1

Map showing Ingushetia
Head of Russia's Ingushetia in intensive care

MOSCOW, June 22 (Reuters) - The leader of Russia's Ingushetia region was in a serious condition and being treated in intensive care after an assassination attempt, RIA news agency quoted a source in local law enforcement agencies as saying.

President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov of the Republic of Ingushetia was injured when a blast rocked his car.

Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov: Vicious

Chechens 'to fight rebels in Ingushetia'

The president of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, says Moscow has ordered him to help fight insurgents in neighbouring Ingushetia.

The president of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, was wounded in an apparent assassination attempt on Monday.

Speaking to the Reuters news agency, Mr Kadyrov said the Russian leadership had told him to intensify operations in both Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Both republics have experienced an upsurge in violence over recent months.

Given the recent assassination attempt against the President of Ingushetia, I decided to post what I consider to be some vital information for understanding the soon to be 'Crisis' in the Caucasus.

Zbiggy Smalls, The Obamessiah & MC Rahm Bam Emmanuael:
The 3 Rappers of the Apocalypse?

first up a post from Justin raimondo of Antiwar.com

Making Excuses for Obama

The mythology of good intentions

"Obama lied – people died!" How long before we see that slogan emblazoned on a placard at a rather sparsely-attended antiwar rally?

But of course he didn’t lie, and isn’t lying now. He’s telling us he wants to confront Russia and Iran. He’s telling us he wants to increase a military budget already larger than the total military expenditures of all other nations combined. He says he won’t hesitate to invade Pakistan – and, presumably, any nation anywhere – if we have some reason to believe Osama bin Laden and his cohorts are in the vicinity. I think he’s telling the truth – and I challenge the Obamaoids, especially the ones who claim to be sick of eight years of constant warfare, to prove otherwise. If Obama is indeed giving us the real story, and if he actually implements his foreign policy proposals, we are in a world of trouble.

He’s telling us he wants to confront Russia [ Zbiggy Smalls Bug-bear ] and Iran. [ Rahm-Bam Emanuel’s Bug-Bear ]


All you need to know about an Obama Administration Foreign Policy direction, in 30 seconds flat!

Zbigniew Brzezinski: How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen

Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.

Now remember that the Prez of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, was targetted by a suicide bomber. Now who do we know uses suicide bombers as their preffered method of assination? Step forward those dastardly demons, at Al Quaida. Now what do we know about Al Quaida? Well one time Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, The Right Honuourable Mr Robin Cook,
wrote this article exactly one month before he died:

Al-Qaida, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.

Exactly 30 days after making that statement Robin Cook died, reportedly of a heartattack, on a Scottish mountainside, on British Ministry of Defence land.

In other words, the US did some “outsourcing” and secretly “hired” some “mercenaries” to fight a “proxy war” for the US (my own choice of terms). It seems that Pakistan’s CIA, the ISI, was also involved and that some amount of the financing/support came from the Saudis, the UK, and China. Pakistan also received massive amounts of US military aid. The number of Muslim men who became US mercenaries according to Robin Cook was “thousands.”

The fact the Cook appeared to believe that Bin Laden did not provide the name for his own organistaion, and that the name apparently was provided by the Security Services that ran the organisation, indicates that Bin Laden was merely a figurehead without much power – others set-up and ran the organisation. In much the same way that Bush appears to be a mere front-man for other more capable and more dangerous individuals, so too is/was Bin Laden.

Wouldn’t it be kinda spooky if in both cases the individuals behind the frontmen were the same people?

If the people running the Org were picked and trained by the Security Services (ISI, MI5 and CIA and others) then in effect the organisation was being run by agents of the security services, and if the funding and weaponry were provided by the Security Services, then to maintain that the Security Services were not running the Org is, at best, naive.

If Cook is to believed, and I see no reason not to believe him, the Big Bad Wolf (Osama) didn’t even provide the name for the Organisation he apparently was mastermind of. That name was provided by the security services.

US reporter Ron Suskind provided us with this quote waaaaay back in October 17, 2004

The aide said that guys like me were in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’‘ he continued. ‘‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’‘

Vlad the Prevailer: Putin gives his side of the Georgian/S. Ossetia Story



Barack Obama: Promised to "Curb russian agression"

So:

• Ingushetia is at present a part of Russia.
  
• Someone recently tried to assassinate the President of Ingushetia using a suicide bomber
  
• "Al Qaida" is known to frequently use suicide bombers
  
• "Al Qaida" is, according to British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, a creation of the US&UK Intelligence services, brainchild of one Zbigniew Brzezinski, advisor to the Carter Administration
  
• Before becoming Prez of the U.S., Barack Obama pledged to "going to "curb Russian aggression"
  
• Zbigniew Brzezinski is a trusted advisor to the US President Barack Obama
  
• Zbiggy likes to spend a lot of his time thinking about way to destroy Russia

Part 2 tomorrow . . . .

Iran election roundup #2

Bring out yer Twits, Bring out yer Twits
Police batter Protesters: Iran or Georgia?

U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran

VASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election.

Confirmation that the U.S. government had contacted Twitter came as the Obama administration sought to avoid suggestions it was meddling in Iran's internal affairs as the Islamic Republic battled to control deadly street protests over the election result.

For Comparison purposes only (i.e. To be completelly ignored by anyone that used Twitter to follow recent events in Iran):

Police in Georgia beat opposition protesters
Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:45am EDT

By David Mdzinarishvili

TBILISI (Reuters) – Masked police beat dozens of opposition protesters in the Georgian capital on Monday in the latest flare-up during a weeks-long street campaign against President Mikheil Saakashvili, witnesses said.

Dozens of black-clad police officers armed with truncheons confronted a protest of about 50 people at Tbilisi’s main police station demanding the release of six opposition activists detained since Friday, a Reuters photographer said.

He said several protesters and a photographer for the European Pressphoto Agency were severely beaten. Senior opposition official Zurab Abashidze was admitted to hospital.

Police seized cameras from photographers and cameramen, including a Reuters photographer. The cameras were later returned but the Reuters photographer’s images had been erased. Other photographers said their memory cards had been taken.

Tensions are running high in the former Soviet republic, after more than two months of opposition protests and roadblocks demanding Saakashvili quit over his record on democracy and last year’s disastrous war with Russia.

The volatile country of 4.5 million people sits on Russia’s southern border, at the heart of a transit region for oil and gas to the West.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” protest leader and former Saakashvili ally Nino Burjanadze said of the violence. “We demand a response from our Western partners, to give their assessment of the situation.”

Saakashvili said he was tolerating a state of “lawlessness” and accused his opponents of trying to provoke him.

“They think Saakashvili is hot-headed, they insult (parliament speaker David) Bakradze and (Prime Minister Nika) Gilauri, and they try to make us crush them, “ he told a televised meeting of the parliamentary majority.

Police firing tear gas and rubber bullets dispersed the last mass demonstrations against Saakashvili in 2007. Watched closely by the West, authorities are wary of taking a hard line again, but analysts question how long the stalemate can continue.

“CRIMINALS AND BANDITS”

Both sides have traded blame for a spate of violent incidents, vying for the sympathy of Georgia’s Western allies.

The opposition said that statements by several Western embassies on Friday, in which they criticized opposition protesters for throwing rocks and bottles at Bakradze’s official car, had encouraged the government to take a hard line.


“The statements made by the U.S., French and Czech ambassadors clearly gave impetus to the authorities to act as criminals and bandits today,” opposition leader David Gamkrelidze said.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that protesters were hampering traffic and resisted police efforts “to unblock the entrance to the police station and restore traffic movement.” It said 39 protesters were detained.

US envoy praises Georgia’s handling of opposition protests

Jun 10, 2009

TBILISI (AFP) — A senior US envoy on Wednesday praised the government of the former Soviet republic Georgia for how it has handled weeks of opposition protests calling on President Mikheil Saakashvili to resign.

“We appreciated the way the government is dealing with the protests,” Philip Gordon, the US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, told a press conference in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

What the Georgians lack is of course an Army of Twits to get all hot and bothered on their behalf. That's the problem with Twits though. Never there when they actually could be useful.


US Defense Department sees protests as terrorism

Antiterrorism training materials used by the Department of Defense teach that public protests should be regarded as “low-level terrorism,” according to a letter of complaint sent to the department by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

:Low Level Terrorist?


I think that the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent — all those are universal values and need to be respected. — US President Barrack Obama commenting on the recent unrest in Iran

Twits out fer the lads . . .

See Also:
Iran election roundup

Update:

Perusing UrbanDictionary.com I found this:

Twitterolution: A revolution instigated, orchestrated and subsequently propagated and promoted by the WEB 2.0 Sensation Twitter.

Example: The protests seen in Iran against the disputed election is the World's first Twitterloution.

SO I sent this alternative definition to the people at UrbanDictionary.com:

Word: twitterolution

Definition: What occurs when a bunch of gullible twits are let loose on the internet to whip themselves into a frenzy regarding an election fraud that probably never occurred

Example: Boy, that was some load of twitterolution in Iran recently, weren't it?

They sent me a very rapid reply:

Editors reviewed your entry and have decided to not publish it.

A good blog on this subject:

Contrasting protest coverage Iran vs G-20 and Georgia

Iran, Iran, Iran. You would think this was the only news in the world. Odd isn't it?

Iran election roundup

Ahmadinejad Supporters
From June 30, 2008:

Report: U.S. ‘preparing the battlefield’ in Iran

VASHINGTON (CNN) — The Bush administration has launched a “significant escalation” of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country’s nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic’s government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.

White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh’s report, which appears in this week’s issue of The New Yorker.

Hersh told CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer” that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents

==========

From Thursday, 28 May 2009:

Iran: Many die in Zahedan mosque bombing

A bomb in a mosque in south-east Iran has killed at least 19 people and injured 60, the governor of Sistan-Baluchestan province said.
Although it occurred in a remote region, the explosion comes at a time of heightened political sensitivity nationally, with just over two weeks before the first round of the presidential election .

Fars news agency quoted witnesses saying the incident had been a suicide attack, and that a second bomb had been defused near the mosque. The reports could not be verified.

==========

Proof: Israeli Effort to Destabilize Iran Via Twitter

Were these legitimate Iranian people or the works of a propaganda machine? I became curious and decided to investigate the origins of the information. In doing so, I narrowed it down to a handful of people who have accounted for 30,000 Iran related tweets in the past few days. Each of them had some striking similarities -

1. They each created their twitter accounts on Saturday June 13th.
2. Each had extremely high number of Tweets since creating their profiles.
3. “IranElection” was each of their most popular keyword
4. With some very small exceptions, each were posting in ENGLISH.
5. Half of them had the exact same profile photo
6. Each had thousands of followers, with only a few friends. Most of their friends were EACH OTHER.

==========

Jones vs. Ross – Knock Out In The Third Round

. . . .The current Haaretz piece is headlined: “Why is Dennis Ross being ousted as Obama envoy to Iran?” The earlier headline was: “Was Dennis Ross ousted as U.S. envoy to Iran because he’s a Jew?”. If I remember correctly the earlier piece did not include the second paragraph of the current one which says Ross will in future “deal primarily with regional issues related to the peace process.”

We do not know why Ross was moved from that position. He should not have been put there in the first place because he is a. against talking with Iran, b. has never had success in achieving agreements in his earlier roles in the Clinton administration, c. has no experience on or with Iran at all.

Haaretz names several possible reason for this move. His open mistrust about talks with Iran, Irans alleged refusal to accept Ross in the negotiator role, his possible own dissatisfaction with his job and a rumored move of Ross to the National Security Agency where, a Haaretz source claims, he would work more directly under Obama.

The last claim sounds bogus to me. Ross does not have any experience as spy – at least not FOR the United States. The other ones are spurious too. Ross’ positions towards Iran was known before he was put onto the job. They can not be reason to now remove him.

=========

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2009/06/iran-election-wrap.html

. . .. It seems the neocons were too smart for their own good, pissed off the Obama administration with their scheming, and paid the price of losing “Dennis Ross: (Ross was probably headed out the door anyway, but the timing of his departure is telling). It was always completely preposterous that the Obama guy in charge of negotiating with Iran was the co-founder – along with Richard Holbrooke, whose job it is to wreck Pakistan – of an institute dedicated to nuking Iran.

From the most dependable newspaper in the world, the Telegraph:

“Mr Mousavi’s cancellation of the protest came as sporadic disturbances continued around the Iranian capital, and reports circulated of leaked interior ministry statistics showing him as the clear victor in last Friday’s polls.

The statistics, circulated on Iranian blogs and websites, claimed Mr Mousavi had won 19.1 million votes while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won only 5.7 million.

The two other candidates, reformist Mehdi Karoubi and hardliner Mohsen Rezai, won 13.4 million and 3.7 million respectively. The authenticity of the leaked figures could not be confirmed.”

Try to remember that this is the Telegraph, not the Onion (a far more reliable news source).

Meanwhile, back in the real world, pollsters explain how the final results are quite credible. Mousavi, a politician who had been out of power for twenty years, entered the race at almost the last moment. The poll showed he didn’t even come close to Ahmadinejad amongst his own ethnic group. Ahmadinejad is considered to be personally completely non-corrupt, while a major supporter of Mousavei, Hashemi Rafsanjani, is infamous in Iran for his corruption.

Mousavi is also good pals with Manucher Ghorbanifar. Remember the meeting in Rome with Ledeen in which they cooked up the trickery which led to the disastrous American attack on Iraq? Remember the Niger documents? The connections to corruption and to the neocons make Mousavi’s recent actions quite understandable. He never thought he was going to win. He was in the election from the get go as part of a neocon/Zionist plot to destabilize Iran and make the election ‘illegitimate’ . . . .

===============

Ahmadinejad

Some Dots You May Want To Connect

Some U.S. officials who have dealt with Ghorbanifar praise him highly. Says Michael Ledeen, adviser to the Pentagon on counterterrorism: “He is one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known.” Others call him a liar who, as one puts it, could not tell the truth about the clothes he is wearing. . . .

On or about November 25, 1985, Michael Ledeen received a frantic phone call from Ghorbanifar, asking him to relay a message from the prime minister of Iran to President Reagan regarding the shipment of the wrong type of HAWKs. . . .

The administration’s reluctance to disclose these details seems clear: the DoD-Ghorbanifar meetings suggest the possibility that a rogue faction at the Pentagon was trying to work outside normal US foreign policy channels to advance a “regime change” agenda not approved by the president’s foreign policy principals or even the president himself. . . .

==========



Axis of Logic

The attempt to discredit the elections and cause instability in Iran look very much like a scheme we've seen before - directly out of the CIA playbook. We've seen this pattern in so many elections in Venezuela, for example, I swear that even the Chavistas would be disappointed if it doesn't reappear next time around. After all, a little drama does add some excitement in elections where consistent landslide victories are won by presidents like Chavez and Ahmadinejad. So here we go again - the old Langley one, two, three:

1. Groom an opposition candidate to run against the guy you hate, pay him well and line up your media to back him.


2. During the campaign, sell him as the savior of the bourgeois opposition who lost their money in the revolution. Use your own pollsters and media propaganda to convince his followers that they are going to win by a wide margin.

3. When your guy loses, scream "FRAUD!" It's akin to yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre, inflaming all those disappointed bourgeois counter-revolutionaries. Get them out on the street, setting fires, playing the victim, waving flags, ready-to-go placards, banners, women crying in front of CNN cameras and men yelling angrily into Christiana Amanpour's microphone. Only this time, they're ready to burn their own flag instead of the U.S. flag. I tell ya, it makes great TV for a western audience.

(Incidentally, don't take Christiana's reports too seriously. The Amanpours, like many Iranian expats, led a privileged life under the Shah of Iran and lost their ill gotten wealth as a result of the Iranian revolution in '79. Naturally, Christiana was very upset. Later, she married James Rubin, an arch-Zionist, and regained her status, good money and even some fame, this time as a CNN reporter in service to the empire.) . . .

===========

See also:

Golden Straitjacket ? . . . more like Golden Steak-knife . . . . through the ribs

Long Live Lord Patel

Long Live Lord Patel!

Edward Teague the man known to hungry bloggers and non bloggers alike, as Lord Patel author of the blog Postman Patel, has sadly left us, for what I hope are greener politician-free pastures.

Tributes have appeared at The Antagonist, also at Craig Murray's website, and at Famous For 15 Megapixels

Today was not a great day for me, the loss of Lord Patel just makes it worse.


Oh well, musn't grumble.




A cartoon by Edward Teague aka: Lord Patel

How to disprove George Monbiot in 26 seconds . . .

George Monbiot: Looks can be decieving.
Doesn't look like a clueless twat, does he?
via Famous for 15 Megapixels:

George Monbiot doing what George Monbiot does best . . .

How to disprove Christopher Booker in 26 seconds

“[George Monbiot] set the stopwatch running, pasted “National Snow and Ice Data Center” into Google, found the site, clicked on News and Events > Press room > Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis and discovered that Booker’s claim was nonsense. It took [George Monbiot] 26 seconds.”

O’rly?

“5.12pm update:“
“Whoops – looks like [George Monbiot] boobed. Sorry folks. As one of the posters on this thread points out, there are in fact two averages in play – 1979-2000 and 1979-2009. It is therefore correct to state that the April 2009 extent exceeds the 1979-2009 average, but not the 1979-2000 average. It remains the case, however, that the data relate to April, not May. Please accept [George Monbiot’s] apologies for [George Monbiot’s] mistake and the confusion it has caused.”

Hubris didn't bother to set the stopwatch running, pasted “George Monbiot is a cluless twat” into Google, found the site Famous for 15 Megapixels", clicked on and discovered that George Monbiot’s claim was total nonsense.
USS Skate, North Pole, March 1959:
Proof that George Monbiot is a clueless twat?
If a long frame of reference doesn’t prove what you want it to prove then, dagnabbit, choose a shorter one that does, and truth be damned.