Bandar’s Threat Comes True – Russia Will Respond

December 30, 2013

August 2013: Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria

As-Safir said Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord. “I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” he allegedly said.

December 2013: Second Blast Hits Russia, Raising Olympic Fears

A deadly suicide bombing at a crowded railroad station in southern Russia on Sunday, followed by a blast in a trolley bus on Monday in the same city, raised the specter of a new wave of terrorism just six weeks before the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

President Vladimir V. Putin’s government has worked to protect the Olympics with some of the most extensive security measures ever imposed for the Games. But the bombings, in Volgograd, underscored the threat the country faces from a radical Islamic insurgency in the North Caucasus that has periodically spilled into the Russian heartland, with deadly results, including several recent attacks.

One doesn’t attack Stalingrad without receiving a blowback. The Russian security forces will have an immediate harsh response on the local level. There will be pressure on Putin to also directly respond towards Saudi Arabia. Russia will feel the need to set a precedence. The response will therefore likely come, though probably delayed, in a rather spectacular form.

Posted by b on December 30, 2013 at 10:39 UTC | Permalink

Comments

neretva’43 #92
Normally I do not agree with your pronouncements here, but in this one you are right on. It was not just Estonia and Latvia, but also Lithuania. Those little defenseless states that every humanitarian warrior must embrace joined the holocaust enthusiastically. Once the Nazis provided them with employment to kill Jews, they jumped in enthusiastically.
Something else that is not often reported is that at the end of WWII many thousands of Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians (and not let us omit Croatians) nationals refugees gained admittance into the US and Canada. These people were all collaborators with the Nazi forces, but officially they were re-branded as “anticommunist”. Magic to say the least: one day dreaded fascists the next “freedom fighters”.

Posted by: ToivoS | Jan 1 2014 2:14 utc | 101

The USA/Saudi/Israel all stand to gain much by an all-out terror war on Russian soil. Why Russia sits by and takes it must mean they are militarily weaker than most of us could ever imagine.
Posted by: Cynthia | Dec 31, 2013 8:51:55 PM | 100
One needs to ignore several observable realities to justify that view.
1. Yankees would have us believe that there’s a Military Solution to EVERY problem – but only if the opponent is weaker by several orders of magnitude; and preferably utterly defenseless.
2. Yankees, via the $cam known as the Military-Industrial Complex, have a terminal case of hardware-itis. It’s worth recalling how much second-rate hardware they take with them to all the wars they LOSE against ‘weaker’ opponents. There’s a lesson in there but the pro-war ideologues will continue to ignore it while the money keeps flowing.
3. Neither Russia nor US, or China for that matter, are pissy, defenseless little countries, so one should expect all/each of them to be a little ‘circumspect’ about employing violent hostility as a first resort. There are better ways to settle a dispute and the Yankees have had several sobering lessons recently.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 1 2014 2:27 utc | 102

… employing violent hostility as a first resort. There are better ways to settle a dispute …

On a state level that is if, the opponents are states, yes. However not when the opponents are non-state organisations decided to use force and cruelty for psycho warfare.
Now, some say that those regions like for instance dagestan just need to be properly supported to build up a healthy state. Theoretically yes, practically no. For a simple reason: If a group blackmails a state with terrorism they will take any response other than sheer force as weakness and proof that their blackmailing works.
Or in other words: Those “better ways” you talk about must be accepted and applied options on *both* sides – which is not the case with terrorists.
As every form of politics is some kind of negotiations to achieve a goal, and this is true for terrorism, too, the only working way to counter terrorism is to respond to it in a way that clearly outside or even the opposite of the terrorists goal and that is way stronger so as to make terrorism strictly undesirable to them.
And just btw, negotiations with dagestan are completely senseless and even unfeasible because there is no “dagestan” in terms of a social or cultural group. Actually dagestan is a kettle full of diverse ethnicities, races, religions, cultures, etc.
Be that as it may be, the sad reality is that caucasus terrorists *have* begun a war. So, the situation is set up and so is the group of available options. Having been attacked by the terrorists, there is only one option, namely to hunt them down, exterminate them to the last supporter and member in spe, and to make it unmistakebly clear that Russia is not to be blackmailed, no matter what for and no matter what the price.

Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Jan 1 2014 3:13 utc | 103

Two useful data points for this discussion:
(1) We have a detailed account of the NATO integration required of Ukraine in the supposed “European Union economic agreement” that Yanukovitch turned down – here
(2) We have an explicit mini-fatwa (a Tweet) from a significant Wahhabi decisor saying Israel is not part of Dar-al-Harb – it was linked right here by someone (possibly brian?) within the last week.

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Jan 1 2014 3:40 utc | 104

Carthago delenda est:

“Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” or “Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” (English: “Furthermore, (moreover) I consider that Carthage must be destroyed”) often abbreviated to “Ceterum censeo”, “Carthago delenda est”, or “Delenda est Carthago”[1] (English: “Carthage must be destroyed”) is a Latin oratorical phrase which was in popular use in the Roman Republic in the 2nd Century BC during the latter years of the Punic Wars against Carthage, by the party urging a foreign policy which sought to eliminate any further threat to the Roman Republic from its ancient rival Carthage, which had been defeated twice before and had a tendency after each defeat to rapidly rebuild its strength and engage in further warfare. It represented a policy of the extirpation of the enemies of Rome who engaged in aggression, and the rejection of the peace treaty as a means of ending conflict. The phrase was most famously uttered frequently and persistently almost to the point of absurdity by the Roman senator Cato the Elder (234-149 BC), as a part of his speeches.

(emphasis added)

Posted by: lysias | Jan 1 2014 4:24 utc | 105

I objected to “delenda sunt”, as opposed to “delenda esse”. The latter construction is required after “censeo”.

Posted by: lysias | Jan 1 2014 4:26 utc | 106

remember olympics 2008 ?
http://www.rense.com/general82/intell.htm

Posted by: denk | Jan 1 2014 6:26 utc | 107

I objected to “delenda sunt”, as opposed to “delenda esse”. The latter construction is required after “censeo”.

I really wrote “sunt”? If so, you are right and I made an error and stand corrected.

Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Jan 1 2014 7:44 utc | 108

You don’t seem to hear much
Forced population transfers in Early Ottoman Stragegy
They kept that strategy up to the 20th century Armenian and Greek tragedies.
However, you are right in one point. Ethnic cleansing has been considered a crime against humanity only after the Second World War. I guess the Palestinian Right of Return was a shift in attitudes.
It was systemic in the Ottoman Empire though. There is loads and loads of literature on it

The second phase, containing the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
signal the transformation of the Ottoman practice: Population transfers become a punitive state regulation specifically exercised on religious dissenters, errant officials, and nomads. Ottoman administrative and religious institutions explicitly employ the transfers to curtail religious heterodoxy and administrative breakdown.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 1 2014 7:44 utc | 109

what would western politicians supporters of FSA make of this?
Bowen should see videos like this: Video: A fighter within #ISIS brags about teaching his son how to behead “the enemies of Allah” in #Syria http://videobam.com/uJDXZ

Posted by: brian | Jan 1 2014 8:01 utc | 110

Above comment was for alexno 91. It is a moot point whose territory it was a few centuries ago. Ethnicities have mixed now. Religion has never been used to define the border of states. It has been used to justify alliances and war though.
The attempt to define states on language, cultural and ethnic heritage has failed in Europe in the Second World War. To reintroduce the idea in order to foment wars in resource countries which cannot otherwise be easily exploited constitutes a crime.
Economic Hit Man Doku by ORF television – dubbed in German

Posted by: somebody | Jan 1 2014 8:02 utc | 111

another pic of the Late and great Hugo Chavez with the Assads in Malloula
pic.twitter.com/w4YjZgeV4D

Posted by: brian | Jan 1 2014 8:11 utc | 112

The barrel bombing meme….brought to u by HRW: the organisation you can trust!
Phil Greaves ‏@PhilGreaves01 50m
@Richard323232 If you have info re. “barrel bombs” it’d be good to hear? No evidence provided to prove this narrative, yet media persist?
Phil Greaves ‏@PhilGreaves01 1h
@bbclysedoucet You seem like a well-intentioned person Lyse, but the org you work for is a mendacious propaganda arm of the western elite.
Phil Greaves ‏@PhilGreaves01 1h
@bbclysedoucet 2/2.. or reems of contradictory accounts. That is not journalism, it is propaganda, & the British public have to pay for it!
Phil Greaves ‏@PhilGreaves01 1h
@bbclysedoucet You rely on sources that are aligned with the “opposition” & UKGovt to form narratives regardless of lack of evidence.. 1/2
Phil Greaves ‏@PhilGreaves01 1h
@bbclysedoucet Which “Doctors”? The BBC cites “SOHR & activists”? HRW have no evidence to prove DT or “barrel bombs” other than “activists”?
Phil Greaves ‏@PhilGreaves01 1h
@bbclysedoucet Yet, when Syrian govt & residents of Adra give accounts of events in Adra you ignore & revert back to SOHR: a bias source.
Phil Greaves ‏@PhilGreaves01 1h
@bbclysedoucet My point exactly, you cant get to Aleppo either but BBC headlines with SOHR & anonymous “activist” claims as if they’re fact.

Posted by: brian | Jan 1 2014 12:22 utc | 113

Rowan, no 87. Grand geopolitical analysis should factor in your “popularity polling”. The Caucasus people are not statists in the grand geopolitical picture, they can also be actors, which is something the grand geopolitical analysts tend to forget. Do you write your excellent blog because you are bought and paid for by someone, or because you feel you have something worthwhile to add to the discourse?
No 92. It is 2014 and you Russians still think you “liberated”. Eastern Europe? Denial is not only a river in Egypt,
Suggest you read Solzenytsin for starters, then Anna Polikovskaya re the Caucasus. And myriads of other writers, many that have also been murdered. Why doesn’T Russia allow journalists into the Caucasus? Why does it murder those that try to find out the troth? NATO, for all its problems, is still preferable to the Warsaw Pact. There are millions of people who have felt the embrace of the Russian Bear, they speak from experience.

Posted by: kassandra | Jan 1 2014 13:02 utc | 114

Brian, interesting that the young man is from Mari El. The Mari people and their culture have almost disappeared, again thanks to the kind ministrations of the Russian /USSR empire.

Posted by: kassandra | Jan 1 2014 13:08 utc | 115

ToivoS: You forgot to add that there were crematoria on wheels on every streetcorner. Nice to see that the propaganda the Simon Wiesenthaler Center produces has not gone to waste.

Posted by: kassandra | Jan 1 2014 13:18 utc | 116

The Caucasus people are not statists in the grand geopolitical picture, they can also be actors, which is something the grand geopolitical analysts tend to forget. Posted by: kassandra | Jan 1, 2014 8:02:19 AM | 113

This is the question: can any ‘people’, simply qua ‘people’, be “actors in the grand geopolitical picture”? I return here to the grittiest aspects of Leninism. On various occasions, ‘the people’ rise up in their multitudes, or at least a lot of them do, and they accomplish nothing except to get themselves killed. Only under very special circumstances, which cannot come about by chance but must be painstakingly engineered, can ‘the people’ actually overturn a state. To imagine otherwise is sheer illusion. There is almost always an incipient coup within the ruling class, and ‘the people’ just give it a final push. So my argument in general is even genuinely universal hatred of a state by its subjects has no effect on the state, except possibly to give it pretexts to harden itself.

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Jan 1 2014 13:53 utc | 117

back to topic – Saudi intelligence – seems like the other shoe drops in Lebanon

Posted by: somebody | Jan 1 2014 14:09 utc | 118

@kassandra
“I live in the Baltics. The fact that the Baltics prefers NATO is not because we love America. It is because we remember the atrocities of the USSR Russians just do not seem to realize how much they were, and in some quarters still are, hated.”
I also live in the Baltics, and I regretfully admit we just changed one master for another. Also its ironic you speak about Stalins atrocities, but forget atrocities committed by Western countries, then and now. USSR crimes against us were a long time ago (same as Hitlers, and others), but we are now servants of brutal NATO and western regimes. We blindly support (and participate) in atrocities against other countries, deny freedom of other nations, just as we are ordered by US/EU. Its pathetic and sad at the same time.
You may like new masters more than old ones, but I would much rather have independence.
“It is 2014 and you Russians still think you “liberated”. Eastern Europe?”

Yes, just to occupy themselves. Same as NATO is doing all the time.
“The Mari people and their culture have almost disappeared, again thanks to the kind ministrations of the Russian /USSR empire.”
How many cultures disappeared because of Western regimes? Our current culture is disappearing as we speak since integration in EU! Western values are forced on us in all areas, some of them are completely degraded, and we no longer have much say in it.
European Council president Herman Van Rompuy said we should forget our national identity. The concepts of “nation” and “homeland” should remain in the footnotes of history.
Thats where we are headed, no nations, no our cultures, just superimposed on us “values” of whatever our new masters want.

Posted by: Harry | Jan 1 2014 14:22 utc | 119

re 109

You don’t seem to hear much

The point I was making is that your historical vision is seriously skewed. Forced population transfers were much commoner in the ancient Near East than in the Ottoman period. I’d already looked at the thesis you cited. Not very good, and, you know, only a Bachelors dissertation, not even a masters. Such dissertations should never be taken as the last word on anything. Undergraduates are capable of saying anything. His advisor, whom I happen to know, is brilliant but particularly nutty. Same with the other text you cite.
Population transfers were very common, nothing special about the Ottomans. Mostly settling new people in conquered territories. Forced exile of existing communities who posed a threat, like the Jews in Babylon, was much rarer. As far as I know, most of what happened under the Ottomans was of the first kind.
Another point you should not forget is that most chronicles were written for governments, and tended to represent what happened as done by the act of the ruler. Other things that happened could get ignored.

Posted by: alexno | Jan 1 2014 15:27 utc | 120

Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Dec 31, 2013 10:13:19 PM | 103
I thought your ‘non-state actors’ addendum to my comment was quite appropriate but I can’t agree that there’s a single. simple, solution to the problem of terrorism. For example, “Kill ’em all!” worked quite well for Sri Lanka only because the Tamils had no safe haven and were confined to a very small area. When there are safe havens, as in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Syria to a large extent, it’s just a long, hard grind. In the Syria situation it’s difficult to get any serious slaughter of terorists started because
– They can sneak off somewhere else inside or outside Syria.
– A full spectrum approach would also necessitate inflicting some very real pain on the sponsors and neighboring supporters (like Turkey).
Iran/FarsNews seems to think this approach has merit too…
Putin Orders S. Arabia “Destroyed” after Volgograd Terror Strikes
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13921011000510
I’m not sure how seriously we should take Iran’s second-hand news, but it shows that you, b, and I aren’t the only people contemplating the wisdom of a more complex and modern solution to Syria’s problems than the traditional, old-fashioned ‘simple’ solution.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 1 2014 15:32 utc | 121

Hoarsewhisperer (119)
Please note that I do not suggest a “kill them all” approach, nor do I look at the “stop them and keep them down” side only. As for the latter my (also chronologically) last point was to considerably enhance everyday life in those regions.
As for the first part, my point wasn’t about killing them but about insanely increasing their “cost” (as well as the threat and danger to them) so as to balance the scales in favour of not committing terrorist acts.
Right now their situation is a multiple win one. They win paradise or something like that but they also win respect and self-esteem. Actually chances are that with each terrorist attack, further terrorist are easier to be found because to other confused terrorist candidates it “seems to work”. Don’t forget that terrorists don’t get acold call and go off; rather they prepare for months, maybe even years towards their “glorious end”. *This* is a major part of the deal; in this phase they are admired by other candidates, they are the “chosen” and/or “brave” ones and they can enjoy lots of admiration and respect in the phase before the attack.
Let me make up a cold calculation, even if it sounds cynical.
If the state doens’t do much (and they *can’t do* anything against a dead terrorist) other than “playing” endless hide and seek games then in the end there are e.g. 150 dead (10*15) innocent citizens and some 300 wounded ones – and 10 dead terrorists that can’t be put to court.
If the state acts “inhumane” and makes legal exceptions re. the terrorists and their families and supporters there are, say, 15 dead people (families except young kids) and 15 wounded or crippled people (supporters) – and the terror attacks stopbecause committing them would mean to not simply kill “unworthy Russians” (or whomever) but to indirectly kill their own family, friends and supporters.
So, it’s 150 *innocent* citizens vs. 15 at least terrorist-related people, 300 innocent victims wounded or crippled vs. 15 terrorist-related people.
And it’s happy killing sprees continuing vs terrorism stopped or at least very much reduced.
The goal in the mid-term is to have *nobody* killed, neither inocent citizens nor families of wannabe terrorists.

Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Jan 1 2014 16:28 utc | 122

somebody | Jan 1, 2014 2:44:28 AM | 109
“It was systemic in the Ottoman Empire though.”
Not only the Ottoman Empire. British were engaged in search for “homeland” of its Jews population as well – from the East Africa to Madagascar. Finally, they settled in Palestine whether they were far sighted and smell a oil or from the Millenarianism reason, waiting Christ’s Second Coming, or both.
It was interesting how USSR deal with its Jews. While nominally a communists, their mindset seem to be of one from London. Stalin established Yevreyskaya avtonomnaya oblast (Jewish Autonomous Province). Where? Far East on the border with China, USSR had had plenty of a inhabited land therefore they invented JAP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast
Under pretext:
“It was the result of Joseph Stalin’s nationality policy, which provided the Jewish population of the Soviet Union with a large territory in which to pursue Yiddish cultural heritage”
Lenin, dubious, claimed that a nations have the right of self-determination (secession), whether this right is granted to JAP is unknown, but I doubt it.
JAP’s flag is interestingly colored.

Posted by: neretva’43 | Jan 1 2014 16:31 utc | 123

Seems like one giant missing piece in this entire thread/discussion is Caspian Sea/region oil. Who controls it? Which way does it get out, etc.?

Posted by: Eureka Springs | Jan 1 2014 16:40 utc | 124

Los Angeles, CA – A special town hall-style meeting Friday night brought together a large crowd of Syrian and Arab-Americans from Southern California and across the country. The atmosphere was slightly tense as the attendees lined up immediately outside the ballroom of the West LA hotel to go through tight security. The special guest that evening was Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Bashar Jaafari. Dr. Jaafari was warmly welcomed by the crowd as he entered the room and took his seat on the stage. He was also joined via video-conference from Damascus by the Grand Mufti of Syria Sheikh Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun and Archbishop Luka Khoury of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Mufti Hassoun began the evening with an address that emphasized the common history and civilization that’s shared by Syrians of all faiths. Pointing out Syrian history predates Christianity and Islam by thousands of years, he stressed the historic unity of the Syrian people and the essential strengthening role it’s played in countering the current onslaught on Syrian society. “Never throughout the entire history of Syria has a Syrian killed another Syrian on account of his faith”, he told the crowd. During the address a member of the audience shouted out his condolences to the Mufti for the death of his son. The Mufti’s son was shot and killed in an ambush near Ibla University in October of 2011. In response Mufti Hassoun told the crowd “all the Syrians that were martyred are my children” and called for peace and an end to violence. The Mufti concluded on a positive note expressing his confidence that the “dark cloud” that now hangs over Syria will pass and all Syrians will come together in a Syria once again at peace. Following Mufti Hassoun Archbishop Khoury also addressed the crowd and stressed the same themes, the historic unity of the Syrian people and the need for an immediate end to violence in the country. The Archbishop also made clear that what is happening in Syria is not a civil war among Syrians, but a war on Syrian society by outside forces.
etc
http://ikhras.com/dr-bashar-jaafari-meets-with-syrian-americans-in-los-angeles/

Posted by: brian | Jan 1 2014 20:25 utc | 125

Reşo Bîstûyek @r3sho 22m
Turkish Islamic aid organization IHH caught red-handed in Hatay delivering weapons to AQ in #Syria. #TwitterKurds [1]
Reşo Bîstûyek @r3sho 23m
Turkish Gendarmerie was led to the discovery thru an anon tip (*cough*Gulenists*cough*). #Syria #TwitterKurds [2]
IHH is a dodgy org that pretends to be humanitarian aid https://www.facebook.com/ihhen theyve blocked me from commenting

Posted by: brian | Jan 1 2014 21:59 utc | 126

@114
interesting defence of an act of terrorism
theres no russian empire now

Posted by: brian | Jan 1 2014 22:01 utc | 127

@114 kassandra and you wonder why noone listens to u!
the guy from Mari el didnt bomb Volgograd because he was seeking Mari el but because of his islamist beliefs:
“I have come here only to make Allah pleased with me, to earn heaven,” he said in the video.
the question then IS allah pleased by his killing people? did he hear back from allah or did he like most jihadis assume allah approved of killing in the cause of jihad?
——————————–
The Volgograd train station bomb that killed at least 17 people on Sunday was set off by a Russian man from the nearby region of Mary El who had converted to Islam and joined Dagestani militants, officials said.
The suspect, identified as Pavel Pechyonkin, worked as a paramedic with an ambulance service but left home in 2011 and joined Dagestani militants after converting to Islam and changing his name to Ansar Ar-rusi.
In response to his parents’ video appeals for him to come home, Pechyonkin posted his own video online this spring, saying he was following God’s will and would not turn back.
“I have come here only to make Allah pleased with me, to earn heaven,” he said in the video.
In a plea by his parents recorded in March, his father, Nikolai, admonished his son to “drop those weapons” before he would become a “terrorist.”
“Do all Muslims go around with weapons?” the father said in the video. “You are the only one so stubborn. What harm have people done you? […] You are going to kill children.”
His mother, Fanaziya, said that she was also a Muslim, and pleaded with her son that he should abstain from using violence.
“What kind of the Koran…” she said, apparently too pained to finish the sentence, before finding the strength to continue: “I don’t believe that Allah has ever said that one must kill people.”
“Pasha, I’m appealing to you — please come back,” she said. “Imagine, what is happening to me now, how I am feeling. …I’m not living, I’m in hell.”
“Imagine that somebody were to kill your parents, how would that make you feel? Why are you turning children into orphans?” she said.
For the video recorded message from Pavel’s parents, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0obx7jP2P98
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/parents-of-volgograd-train-station-bomber-pleaded-for-his-return-video/492336.html

Posted by: brian | Jan 1 2014 22:06 utc | 128

for the sake of allah? Grim Rapper: another ‘brit’ working with the same terrorists claimed to have done London bombing: Rap servicing imperial backed terrorism!
Mojtaba Ali Masood @MojtabaMasood 2h
Fighting jihad in Syria, British rapper from Maida Vale, west London, who is son of a suspected Al Qaeda mastermind.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2531994/Fighting-jihad-Syria-British-grime-rapper-1m-home-Maida-Vale-west-London-son-suspected-Al-Qaeda-mastermind.html …
amazing how many claim to kill for the sake of allah ….yet never bother to ask allah if he approves

Posted by: brian | Jan 1 2014 22:34 utc | 129

It appears that there is a double standard with acts of terrorism – Terrorism against US is bad, but terrorism relating to
Russia is good….Our mass media seems to be focused on looking for excuses as to why the acts in Volgograd took place. The Russo-phobic “reporting” seems to be condoning any action taking place against the Russian people…..

Posted by: georgeg | Jan 1 2014 22:35 utc | 130

@ 127.
She told me She doesn’t approve.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 2 2014 1:35 utc | 131

Pravda thinks that Putin seems to think that the days of Saudi Arabia’s Impunity myth are numbered – just like America’s SuperPower & Impunity myths…
Terrorists declare war on Russia. Will Russia respond?
http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/30-12-2013/126519-russia_terorrists-0/

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 2 2014 3:13 utc | 132

There’s lots of entertaining stuff in the Most Popular column alongside the Pravda article.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 2 2014 3:31 utc | 133

Why the attack on Wikileaks party participation in Syrian solidarity visit
‘We heard the stories of Damascus University students who lost 8 of their colleagues when terrorists launched mortar attack on the Faculty of Architecture. They were not soldiers and carried no weapon.
We also heard stories of families who lost relativise in Adra. Some of their family members were kids who were thrown into industrial ovens alive.
We witnessed mortar attacks on civilians next street where we went shopping.
We heard countless stories of Syrians, both supporters and opponents of President Assad and his government. But both agreed on one issue: the alternative to the regime is total chaos. This includes wide-spread sectarian war as terrorists are declaring the majority of Syrians to be infidels that needed to be beheaded.
We are very disappointed that Australian media was very biased and sees in “one-eye”. I am very disappointed that no one single Australian media outlet mentioned the horrendous massacre of Adra. I could not find any report mentioning of confirmed account of throwing kids into oven by Wahhabi terrorists in Adra.’
etc
http://jamaldaoud.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/why-attack-on-wikileaks-party.html

Posted by: brian | Jan 2 2014 4:08 utc | 134

kassandra #115
Interesting response to my comment. I simply pointed out the obvious historical fact that many of the Baltic Republic nationalists were willing collaborators with the Nazis during WWII. There is do debate about this. You respond that I am a spokesman for the Simon Wiesenthal institute. How did you make that connection? It is really weird. Please connect a few dots for us so we can see where you came up with that conclusion?

Posted by: ToivoS | Jan 2 2014 4:12 utc | 135

I wrote a response to Kassandra’s #113, which itself was a response to my #87, in which I said “Geopolitics should not be confused with popularity polling.” I was paraphrasing a famous remark by Henry Kissinger in testimony to the Pike Committee in 1975: “Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.” But anyway, Kassandra responded: “The Caucasus people can also be actors, which is something the grand geopolitical analysts tend to forget.” What happened to my response I don’t know. It might be in the spam bin, or I might just have failed to hit the “Post” button. What it said was something like this: The question is, can ‘a people’, as such, ever be ‘actors’ in a geopolitical sense? Often enough, ‘a people’ rises up in fury against its rulers and achieves nothing except its own slaughter. A strong and stable state can simply mow down protestors, no matter how many of them there are. The state is not normally endangered by such uprisings, unless other conditions also obtain. Essentially, a popular uprising can achieve nothing unless either (a) the police and army are on the verge of mutiny anyway, so that when confronted with protesting masses, police and army rank-and-file mutiny and refuse to fire on them when ordered to do so by their officers, and sometimes even junior officers can be drawn into this mutiny, so that police and army power simply splinters and disintegrates, in which case you get an army coup controlled by mid-level officers or occasionally by dissident generals, or (b) following on from that, you have an incipient split in the ruling class itself, between liberal and reactionary tendencies, and the popular uprising may even have been encouraged covertly by the liberal wing, to provide the occasion for a coup.

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Jan 2 2014 5:01 utc | 136

I simply pointed out the obvious historical fact that many of the Baltic Republic nationalists were willing collaborators with the Nazis during WWII. There is do debate about this.
Posted by: ToivoS | Jan 1, 2014 11:12:08 PM | 132
That’s Not Quite Right. I wouldn’t describe what you said at 101 as “simply pointing out an historical fact.” Here it is, in all its (embellished) glory …
“Those little defenseless states that every humanitarian warrior must embrace joined the holocaust enthusiastically. Once the Nazis provided them with employment to kill Jews, they jumped in enthusiastically.”
…
Posted by: ToivoS | Dec 31, 2013 9:14:53 PM | 101
Milking existential threats as if they were cows is more than ‘simply pointing out’.
As Gilad Atzmon points out in his Judea Declares War On Obama essay, Jewish History always begins with Jewish suffering and not with the events which led to the suffering. In fact he describes Jewish History as collection of lies, joined together by a series of blind-spots etc etc.
Read it for yourself. He says it a lot better than I (or your good self) ever could.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 2 2014 6:17 utc | 137

134) schoolyard rule for teachers no. one – you do not blame the victim, you isolate the bully.
For the victim it is advisable to analyse what makes him/her a victim That’s what Zionism did. They succeeded – they are no longer the victim.
I suggest we make new history instead of repeating the old one.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 2 2014 7:40 utc | 138

“Funny”.
Pretty much no matter what any sad incident discussion is about, sooner or later the jew issue will creep in; with the poor jews as victims, of course.
At the same time, any real jewish (read: zionist) involvement or relation is vehemently denied.
Actually, almost always it should be just the other way round. zionists *are* behind or at least indirectly involved with pretty every inhumane killing tragedy. And “the jews” are in no way whatsoever involved as victims.
Like here in this discussion at hand.
Whysoever baltic people may or may have not been involved in the actual or made up killing of jews many decades ago, plays absolutely no role in the Volgograd massakers.
OTOH, it is well known that the zio-scum non-state iszrael is friendly and tight with the zaudi betrayers, liars and criminals, who again stand in Volgograd blood up to their knees.
So, stop the abusive and shameless milking of really murdered victims all over the world for the benefit of the zionist propaganda.
Ceterum censeo israel americamque delenda esse.

Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Jan 2 2014 8:57 utc | 139

letting Pravda tell you what Putin thinks is like letting Mad Magazine tell you what George W Bush thinks. Er, maybe I phrased that wrong…

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Jan 3 2014 1:50 utc | 140

@ 140.
Well, sort of…
Did you read my #133?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 3 2014 3:01 utc | 141

Posted by: brian | Jan 1, 2014 11:08:02 PM | 134
LOL.
Liar, dimwit & Right-wing Crank, Julie Bishop, Tony Abbott’s Foreign Minister, gave Wikileaks a good dressing down for “taking sides” in the Syria SNAFU. “We aren’t taking sides in Syria – and (anyway) we’re participating in the sanctions against the Assad regime.”
Wikileaks denied that it approved, or was associated with, the delegation.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 3 2014 7:23 utc | 142

Re #141: this is why I usually don’t bother to look at Pravda.ru – and believe me, there are lot of US webrags that do this too:

“Groups of Chechen fighters, who express different threats to the Olympic Games, are under our control,” The Guardian quoted the prince.

The point being that to lend the authority of the Graun to this rumour is not just sloppy, it’s dishonesy.

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Jan 4 2014 19:22 utc | 143

Just out of interest, I looked up the original source of the rumour. It was the arabic-language newspaper as-Safir. Their article was picked up and translated by Al-Monitor. As-Safir then picked up Al-Monitor’s translation for their own english-language edition. So that confirms the translation is bona fide, but of course it says nothing about the reliability of the rumour itself. I personally believe it’s true, but giving the Graun as authority for it is, as I said, dishonest, and implies a degree of confirmation in Moscow which could never exist, because if Putin’s office leaked the rumour, it certainly took care not to give it any authoritative backing. That fact is an indicator of how cautious, not to say timid, Putin actually is. Wikipedia has an article on as-Safir, stating that it is close to Hezb’ollah.

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Jan 4 2014 20:08 utc | 144

@ 143. Your point about Pravda was valid. I too have spent ‘too much’ time there in the past. I liked the sense of mischievous, pointless(?) fun there.
@ 144. That fact is an indicator of how cautious, not to say timid, Putin actually is.
Now here, your opinion of Vlad and mine part company – completely.
Putin knows just how ‘good’ the Yankees have always been at blundering into ambushes – 9 times out of 10 – of their own making. eg Obama’s Syria Red Line. Anyone who thinks Putin didn’t shove that up Obama’s “place where the Sun don’t shine” wasn’t paying attention.
Imo, if Putin ever decides that military hostility with US has a bigger upside for Russia than the US, then hostility there will be, instigated by the Dumbass Yankees and leaving Russia with no choice to respond in self-defense.
I’m one of those ‘idiots’ who believes that Russia DID shoot down some US missiles over the Med in September. What makes the story believable is that the Yankees are stupid enough to fire missiles at Syria with Russia standing guard, AND they couldn’t do much about it because
1. Their bluster always out-paces their ability.
2. Their myths would have been shredded within an hour.
Anyone looking for “timidity” writ large, need look no further than the weak as piss and twice as yellow Yankees.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 6 2014 4:05 utc | 145

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