World Affairs Brief, October 7, 2011
Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Source: Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief
Finally, a former insider with the old Soviet Union admits what I have been saying for years. Russia is ruled by others above Putin. JR Nyquist, writing for Financialsense.com revealed that “During a broadcast of Shuster Live, former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk [wikipedia] publicly stated that the real rulers of Russia are ‘one step above’ Prime Minister Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev. ‘Putin and Medvedev do not determine the future of Russia and the world. Another group determines the policy.’
“[Incredibly] The other television guests, along with the host (Mr. Shuster), listened attentively to Kravchuk’s explanation. Nobody jumped up to contradict him [an indication that all
savvy people close to government understand there are people behind the scenes
who call the shots]. He spoke carefully, in a calm voice, sometimes smiling as he spoke. Kravchuk’s manner had the authority of one who knows. The live audience applauded Kravchuk’s statement, which warned that the thinking of the Ukrainian government was mistaken. The Ukrainian government thinks it can build a relationship of friendship with Russia, he said, but there is no friendship. ‘Russia is ruled not by one or two individuals but by a group of people,’ Kravchuk explained. ‘Russia has not yet identified the names, but this is a real fact.’”
Jeff Nyquist, the only other national analyst besides myself who believes Russia is still intending to attack the West with nuclear weapons, is a rigid denier of conspiracy in these matters. He’s still beating that drum: “We might ask whether former President Kravchuk is a ‘conspiracy theorist.’ No, he is one of the best-informed East European politicians alive [implying that “best informed” precludes any
acknowledgment of conspiracy! If what Kravchuk describes is NOT a conspiracy to
conceal an ugly control agenda within Russia then what is it?]
“Kravchuk understood Moscow’s politics so well in times past that he advanced under that system. He became head of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and was the man who declared Ukraine’s independence, after all. He knows for a ‘fact’ that Putin and Medvedev are part of a larger façade [It also means that he knew
that Russia gave orders for all the Soviet Satellites to break away—that
the “fall of Soviet Union” was a deception. All those in power at
the fall got phone calls from Moscow giving them instructions to allow the
protests to go forth without intervention, as Erik Honeker of East Germany
admitted on his death bed]. Russia is still dangerous, he warned his Ukrainian listeners. The personal dictatorship of Putin is a deception. Do not believe what you see. There is not going to be positive change in Russia next year.
“In the West, policy-makers should heed Kravchuk’s warning about the Russian system. Moscow is not on a democratic path. Moscow is on a totalitarian path. And furthermore, Putin himself is a placeholder for others.” Sadly, Nyquist fails year after year to acknowledge that our government will never recognized what they know about Russia, nor warn the American people until just before the strike when it is too late. He thinks our leaders are stupid. I believe they are conspiring for war to bring on their vaunted New World Order out of crisis. Time will tell who is right.
Not well reported in the US was Putin’s latest move toward setting up tension between the EU and Russia. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp did cover this important move [ article]: “Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has proposed forming a ‘Eurasian Union’ of former Soviet nations, saying the bloc could become a major global player competing for influence with the United States, the European Union and Asia.
“He said in an article published Tuesday in the daily Izvestia that the new alliance should emerge as ‘one of the poles of the modern world, serving as an efficient link between Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific region.’
“Putin, who is all but certain to reclaim the presidency in March’s election, has been accused of rolling back Russia’s post-Soviet democratic achievements during his two terms as president in 2000-2008. He has remained Russia’s de-facto leader after shifting into the premier’s job due to a term limit, and his protégé and successor Dmitry Medvedev proposed last month that Putin run for president.
“Putin claims ‘There is no talk about rebuilding the USSR in one way or another. It would be naive to try to restore or copy something that belongs to the past, but a close integration based on new values and economic and political foundation is a demand of the present time,’ he said. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan already have formed an economic alliance that has removed customs barriers in mutual trade during the past summer. They are to introduce unified market rules and regulations starting Jan. 1. Putin said that Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are expected to join the grouping.
“‘We aren’t going to stop at that and are putting forward an ambitious task of reaching a new, higher level of integration with the Eurasian Union,’ Putin said. Ukraine continues to focus on EU relations. Russia has long called for stronger co-operation between ex-Soviet nations, but earlier attempts at forging closer ties between them have failed due to sharp economic differences. Many former Soviet nations have looked westward and remain suspicious of Moscow’s intentions, setting a rocky path to Putin’s ‘Eurasian Union.’”
They have good reason to be suspicious. While the citizens of the former Soviet states are glad to be free, all of the leaders at the time knew that the circumstances of the breakup were planned ahead as noted in Anatoly Golitzin’s work “New Lies for Old.”
Several of the so-called anti-Soviet leaders at the time in Poland (Lech Waleza), in Czechoslovakia (Vaclav Havel) were later found to be secretly allied with the soviet secret organs playing both sides. Some of the Iron Curtain leaders refused to go along with the simulated collapse of communism. Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, for example, refused the Kremlin’s orders to step down and had to be killed, along with many of his cadre.
The Soviets set up Ion Iliescu, a former Communist Party official marginalized by Ceausescu, to take his place pretending to be anti-communist. He didn’t fool many Romanians, but the Western press never breathed a word about the false circumstances of his rise in the freedom movement. That was typical of the entire era. The press never questioned the contradictions that were everywhere: Why Yeltsin, for example, was allowed to broadcast his reform message from a tank in Red Square when the communists still controlled the television connection. Or, why the KGB coup failed to capture Gorbachev in his undefended villa. Were they that incompetent? It was all political theater.
The real question is how many of the former Soviet States now part of NATO and the EU will join Putin in his Eurasian Union. I predict that none will, and Putin doesn’t really want them to. They are much more useful as spies within NATO when the time for the final attack on the West comes.
It has long been my theory that the so-called Russian Oligarchs [wikipedia] are the real rulers in Russia. We know that it started out that way. Each of the original billionaires [Forbes] were high party officials in Moscow and they gained control over the oil and gas fields by instructing the central bank to loan them the money to buy those valued assets. No one could do that unless they were the real rulers.
Boris Berezovsky [BBC Profile] was the top man during the phony fall of communism and served afterward as the General Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States—the more benign appearing cover organization for the continuing Soviets during the Yeltsin years. One source on the Russia List told his audience shortly after the “fall” that one of his sources inside the Kremlin saw Boris Yeltsin step aside and allow Berezovsky to enter the room first, indicating in Russian protocol that the Secretary of the new Commonwealth was superior to Yeltsin. Of course, most knew that Yeltsin was a mere figurehead anyway.
Putin is much more believable as a strong man than Yeltsin, the drunk, but he too is a puppet to the hidden politburo running things behind the scenes. In high circles in Moscow, “The Party says this… or wants that…” is heard often in whispered conversations—indicating that people in the know all recognized that the Communist Party is still in charge, despite appearances of democracy.
Putin and Berezovsky have made much of their supposed opposition to each other. And yet, Spanish intelligence recorded conversations of Putin meeting with Berezovsky five times at the Oligarch’s Spanish villa the year he ascended to the Presidency. Doesn’t sound like enemies to me.
Just to keep up the show Berezovsky made public in Britain his intentions to finance a revolution against Putin in Russia. Now what sane opposition exile would broadcast such plans to the world if such a plan were real? Funny, the press never asked such a question—not wanting to blow Beresovky’s cover.
Right now there’s another show trial going on in London between Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, two oligarchs apparently at each other’s throat. In fact Berezovsky was Abramovich’s mentor in the world of big money. We can actually learn a bit from the British press accounts. William Underhill has the story.
“It’s the heavyweight confrontation of the century: a legal grudge match with billions of dollars at stake. After a decade of sparring, the two biggest bruisers of Russia’s billionaire class—sworn enemies with similar reputations for high living—have at last come within punching distance [see what I mean about political
theater?].
“In one corner of the court: the 44-year-old former plastic-duck salesman, engineer, and oil trader Roman Abramovich, an orphan from Siberia who managed to pile up a fortune now estimated at $16 billion in less than 10 years. His assets include the high-flying Chelsea Football Club, the world’s largest yacht, and a girlfriend who is a former model.
“In the other: the Soviet-era mathematics professor Boris Berezovsky [that’s his cover story. Boris was always high in the
communist hierarchy from Brezhnev on]. The 65-year-old, once a hugely powerful Kremlin insider and media mogul, is now living in exile in England. He’s been a regular assassination target in the past—one attempt saw his driver decapitated [all for show, but with grizzly results so that
no one would question his claims of a feud between himself and Putin]—and his home is a fortified mansion in the countryside said to be guarded by a squad of former French Legionnaires.
“Betrayal adds spice to the contest. The two, who first reportedly met on a Caribbean cruise [not true at all], were once firm friends and maybe business partners. By some accounts, it was Berezovsky who provided the political sponsorship and savvy needed for his protégé to make his billions [true], only to be cheated of his rightful share [maybe,
but more likely this is just for show. If Berezovsky had really been
cheated he could have had Abramovich eliminated quickly]. The two have rarely come face to face in 10 years.
“At issue is the older man’s claim for $5 billion in damages, a record for the British courts. Berezovsky says—there is no written documentation—that he was coerced by Abramovich into selling his 21 percent stake in the oil company Sibneft after he fled Russia in 2000 following a bust-up with the country’s then-president, Vladimir Putin.
“Threatened that he would see his assets seized by the state [more inventions. Berezovsky controls the state], Berezovsky accepted just $1.3 billion for the shares—only a fraction of what he believed to be their true worth. In 2005, Sibneft was sold by an Abramovich company to the state-owned energy group Gazprom for a whopping $13 billion.” Abramovich claims to be in Putin’s favor, so all this enhances the dramatic flare of the Putin-Berezovsky phony rift.
The British papers even revealed that “in the late ’90s Abramovich’s companies were picking up the tabs for Berezovsky’s extravagant lifestyle as payment for his services as ‘political godfather,’ according to lawyer Jonathan Sumption. ‘This was personal expenditure on a most exuberant scale: palaces in France, private yachts and aircraft, jewels for his girlfriend, valuable paintings,’ says Sumption. When oligarchs fall out, who knows when the knockout blow will come?” If it doesn’t you’ll know this is just for show.
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Copyright Joel Skousen
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