Sunday, January 11, 2015

Charlie Hebdo Terrorism - Cui bono

Terrorists serve broader political aims than just their own stated goals.  Consequently it is hard to tell always who is behind them with money, logistics, training, advice etc.  Several articles showed up in my news feed since the massacre in Paris (surprise surprise) that I had not thought about before.

Of course the Russian media is already blaming the CIA for the murders to drive France and Europe in the saving arms of America.  And naturally, Paul Craig Roberts agrees with Russian media but he is certifiable. 

The involvement of the CIA with funding and training various terrorist groups is reasonably well known, which is why it is so easy to suspect them of being behind every terrorist organization or act in the world. but I had not thought about the KGB/FSB in the same light.

According to Pavel Gubarov, "Governor" of the Donetsk People's Republic, he has recorded proof of Putin's Chechen Warlord Ramzan Kadyrov bragging to some of the Russian terrorist fighters that he had hired two Algerians to make trouble in Paris in revenge for French sanctions and the cancellation of the Mistral warship contract. He does not approve of this kind of terrorism and is willing to cooperate with what he knows.

In the same article Ukrainian Rada Deputy Ihor Mosiychuk is quoted as saying Kadyrov had threatened France before and "when the Caucasus Mujahideen open a second front against the tyrant of the Kremlin, his vassal Kadyrov is trying at all costs to paint the Caucasian rebels as Islamist terrorists".


Ex-deputy of the State Duma, Chairman of the "Western choice" Konstantin Borovoy is quoted as believing that the terrorist attacks in Paris is another special operation of the Kremlin in order to radicalize the situation in France and Europe to help the right-wing nationalists.

"Terrorist attack in Paris - it's certainly an attempt to radicalize the situation in Europe to help the right-wing nationalists and avenge France for refusing to supply the Russian military helicopters "Mistral". But the main reason is still to cause substantial damage to stability in Europe. Putin wanted to prove to himself that he can affect the international political situation. After all, today he remains in isolation and is opposed by all the European Community. And he is very dangerous.

The ultra-nationalist political party "National Front", led by Marine Le Pen, won 20% of the votes in the parliamentary elections of 2012 and more than 25% of the vote in last year's elections to the European Parliament. The party is in receipt of a multi-million dollar loan from a Russian controlled bank with ties to the Kremlin.  As the money is a loan, it is not taxable in France.


Then we can assume another goal - an attempt, at least temporarily divert attention from the war in Ukraine".

Akhmed Zakayev, Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, in exile in London has written to the President of France regarding the need ofRussia to find a common enemy with the west, Islamic terrorists:

"There has been a very dramatic change in international politics last year. In connection with the occupation of the territory of  Ukraine Western 
countries have imposed economic sanctions against Russia. Today, Russia is on the brink of economic crisis, which, in turn, will inevitably lead to a political crisis. In this situation, in order to maintain the current criminal regime in Russia, the Russian special services must find a common enemy with the West, which will lead to the cancelling of sanctions against Russia - a country aggressor.  According to a plan of the Kremlin in the role of a common enemy would have to come out again "Islamic terrorists."

NATO has already said that Russia is a partner in fighting terrorism.

So who benefits from the terrorist incident?  Certainly the far right in Europe.  Certainly Russia.  Does America benefit?  Possibly but how is not as clear.

For further information on Russian involvement with Islamist terrorism, keep reading.

Business Insider describes the FSB and Al-Qaeda connection with Ayman al-Zawahiri who spent 6 months in the custody of Russian intelligence in the mid-1990s.  They then let him go, claiming later that they did not know who he was at the time of his arrest trying to enter Chechnya.

Shortly thereafter, he headed for Afghanistan to establish his fateful alliance with bin Laden, which was cemented in the mid-February 1998 announcement of a new partnership between the men and their organizations in a Global Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders. Thus was al-Qa’ida officially born and the path to 9/11 was established.......

There are many reasons to doubt the official story told by both sides in the affair. In the first place, Zawahiri was one of the world’s most wanted terrorists in 1996, having played a leading role in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981; the doctor’s role in the subsequent public trial was televised in many countries.

He was hardly a secret mujahid. Furthermore, it is difficult to believe that a security service as proficient and thorough as the FSB did not have its interest piqued by the appearance of three Arab mystery men, bearing multiple identities and cash, in the middle of a warzone.
It is equally difficult to accept that the FSB was unable to uncover the mysteries contained in Zawahiri’s laptop – as the Americans would do after many such laptops belonging to al-Qa’ida leadership were captured in Afghanistan after 9/11 – had the Russians really wanted to..... 
Might Moscow have suggested that it would look the other way about al-Qa’ida’s activities in Chechnya as long as bin Laden and Zawahiri left Russia alone otherwise? It surely appears significant that Zawahiri led bin Laden down the path of global jihad, and direct confrontation with the United States, after emerging from his half-year as a guest of the FSB.
As President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly made clear, a unipolar, American-led global system is not in Russia’s interests. To this day, Russia has endured many attacks by Chechen militants, but no confirmed acts of terrorism perpetrated by al-Qa’ida Central. This vexing issue continues to offer more questions than answers, and needs additional research, particularly considering the state of relations between Moscow and the West.
An article from the Lithuanian DEPHI which is part 2 of a series looking at Russian links with terrorism.  It is long and not particularly easy to read but very detailed in terms of names dates and places.  The meat of it is that originally the Chechen wars were about establishing an independent secular republic as had Armenia and Azerbaijan.  

However the current crop of anti-Russian fighters, in the North Caucuses are Wahhabi Islamists bent on establishing a Caucasian Emirate. They had been galvanized by the atrocities of the Second Chechen War and of Ramzan Kadyrov, Putin's warlord, charged with keeping Chechens under control. However Wahabism is being spread throughout the FSU by the Islamist Revival party which seems to have its roots in the KGB/FSB.

This has great benefits for Russia as it allows them to divide Muslims into two groups, the good ones who are moderate and do not upset the apple cart and the bad terrorists.  The author suggests that the terrorists are in fact cultivated as provocateurs by the FSB and therefore not trusted by the local populace.

A number of fighters from the North Caucuses have been recruited by ISIL in Syria including one Doka Umarev, leader of the Emirate, who was allegedly dead but turned up in Syria, transferred by the Kremlin to fight AGAINST their ally Assad.  Russia needs to hang on to Syria and Assad as their last foothold in the Middle East, so by strengthening ISIL in opposition, they can muddy the waters.

‘The basic difference between Russia’s and America’s attitude towards Islamic terrorist is that America regards it as an external threat, while Russia employs terrorism as an object and government tool both internally and abroad. Islamic terrorism is only a part of international terrorism. KGB was using terrorism to spread communist regime principles all over the world, and it was well before Islamic terrorism became a global threat.‘

Friday, January 9, 2015

Catching up is hard to do

Happy New Year to all my reader's who survived the holiday season.  Actually it isn't quite over yet in Ukraine but I think Monday is back to normal.  Or else the week after. We had family and friends for a feast on "Catholic Christmas" (Dec 25) and two more family feasts on NYE and "Christian Christmas" eve (Jan 6).

The annual Christmas letter went out to anyone I thought might be interested.  Not many people write them anymore, what with Facebook allowing daily updates with pictures and all.  My late wife was an amazing letter writer, kept up a huge correspondence.  She used to write individual letters at Christmas to 75 or 100 people.  Once that got too much she photocopied a hand written or typed letter.  Getting a computer sure speeded that up and especially addressing the envelopes.

It also made it easier to save the letters from year to year.  Going back over them is like reading a mini-history of our family.  An "authorized history" mind you but none the less, a brief look at our lives year on year.  I grouped them into PDF documents by decade and sent them to the kids.  Five letters from the 80's; ten from the 90's; eight from the 2000s. Thirty years of memories.

I got the books caught up, which is never fun.  But things more or less balanced and at least I know where some of the money went.  It sure does went.

Finally caught up on blog reading this morning.  Amazing how long it takes to read all the blog entries on those I follow, especially Paul Goble's.  He can summarize half a dozen Russian articles a day when he is on a role.  And news - I am a news junkie now.  No idea how many articles I read in a day.  There are dozens of articles on Europe, Russia and Ukraine coming in on my Facebook feed, plus the websites I have linked.  The kids gave me The New Yorker for Christmas.  Throw in the freebies from several magazines like the Economist and it never ends.  Not sure I am any smarter coming out than going in, though.

The Charlie Hebdo massacre is pretty horrific and will generate the intended backlash.  The Economist charted Islam in Europe and compared actual numbers against perceptions.  As expected perception is multiples of reality.  There are enough nutjobs ready to say "Kill them all and let God sort it out", that I should hate to be Muslim in Europe.  That is the intent of course, to have all Muslims living in fear of an infidel backlash and ready to obey the ISIL and Al-Qaeda call to jihad.

Interesting enough, Putin condemned the killings but the usual Kremlin suspects applauded them, as “I just found out about this and I am for those who shot them. There must be press censorship, and if you don’t feel the limits, then you pay with your life” .

Ukraine is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Ukrainian positions are shelled and attacked daily.  The Russian side by all reports is gearing up for a massive attack but when?  I wish our troops were better armed with high tech anti tank stuff and the like.

Russia continues to go rapidly downhill towards Stalinist totalitarianism.  Now they have banned transsexuals and transgender people from driving as they are psychologically unfit.  There is a fairly lengthy list of folks now banned from driving to decrease road deaths. Actually repairing roads and cracking down on drunks would go quite a ways too.  There is zero tolerance for drinking and driving but unfortunately not zero tolerance for bribery or protection from high position (your own or someone you know).

A few decent articles, especially Motyl's article on Donbas and the Deep South:







Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Anger Management

Facebook has all sorts of neat quizzes that tell you what kind of ___ you are or how kind you are etc. I like doing them, realizing that I am somehow passing on important personal information that can be used to target me with advertising.  Mostly it seems to target me with interesting news items which are 2/3 of my FB news feed. Advertising is wasted on me as money is a requirement, I understand, if you wish to buy things.

Today there was a quiz about anger that my cousin in law had done that said she was pretty laid back which is the truth.  Not quite comatose (she is in Calgary and can't reach me to beat me) but not easily disturbed.

Can You Pass an Anger Management Test?


I, on the other hand,... according to the test, had moderate anger management issues.  I take pills for that or they would not be so moderate, trust me.  As one who has never suffered fools gladly, I find that there are fewer fools when I take pills.

But these days they do not seem to be working.  Reading the news and comments on Ukraine makes my blood boil.  Dealing with EU bureaucratese makes my blood boil.  Dealing with idiots who cannot follow simple written instructions makes my blood boil.

I am so grouchy I could put my teeth in backwards and bite myself in the throat.  Mostly I just want to crawl in a hole and pull the hole in after me.  Slept to 10:30 this morning and had a nap this afternoon.  And it is not even February.

But it is winter, such as it is.  +5C, constantly cloudy, constantly foggy, constantly muddy.  I wish it would get cold and snow.  But then I think about those poor pensioners in eastern Ukraine with no heat or light and our poor army guys some of whom are still without winter equipment though that is changing.

Christmas!  Bah! Humbug.


Saturday, December 13, 2014

Herding Cats

Life is pretty routine at our house.  Highlights are garbage pick up day (Tuesdays) and water delivery day which is roughly every 8 days. (We get two 18 litre carbouys of drinking water delivered for $5.30 CAD).  Saturday we take a taxi to town for groceries. Round trip 14 km total fare $6 CAD.

We don't have children, though our granddaughters live in town and we visit often; every day by Skype.  So we have a dog and three cats to brighten our days.  We had two dogs but Bobik met an untimely end over a female, leaving Volk quite lonely.  Our cats Bonya and Tigritsa I have blogged about before.  Their brother Vovochka or Vovo (Vladimir) came to live with us permanently when Lina was working long hours.

They never met a door they were on the right side of, especially bathroom and front door.  Bonya can open the downstairs bathroom door if it isn't locked as the latch doesn't work.  He thinks if you are just sitting there doing nothing you should at least be petting him.  The door swings open on its own weight and leaves you rather exposed to the world especially should someone come in the front door which is opposite the bathroom door across the big entry way.

They go in and out the front door several times a day.  They come in to use the litter box.  I kid you not.  There is a heavy grape vine that winds its way to the upstairs balcony.  They learned to climb it as kittens and now, if we are not downstairs to let them in, they climb the vine and snap the plastic frame of the balcony screen door until we hear them.

Boyna likes to be petted and will climb on Tanya's lap sometimes when she is watching TV. He is a suck.  Vovo also likes to be petted but at night when we are sleeping.  He climbs on the bed and crawls between us to where he can bunt my hand with his head indicating "wake up and pet me".

Tigritsa only wants to be petted when I am at my computer.  She sits and looks longingly at me until I push the keyboard away to make room.  Then she jumps up for a face rub.  She licks my thumb so I wash her neck and top of her head, cat style - lick, rub, lick rub.  Then she flops over and goes to sleep with her head on my wrist.  I am allowed to use the mouse IF there are no sudden sweeping moves. Else she digs her claws into my arm to hold it.

Sleeping on the keyboard tray, head on my arm, back against my tummy
I never knew cats could have colds but all three of ours came down with something during the coldest weather when we had snow.  I was afraid it was distemper but the vet said not.  Bonya started it, trying to cough up a lung.  Our vet, who was out twice to see the cats, gave us an immuno-stimulator which we injected (sub-cu) every day for a few days.  Tigritsa had a mild case of it but Vovochka who was not at all sick at first got it really bad, more sneezing than coughing with runny nose and eyes.  They are finally over it.

Our vet, Andrei, is a wonderful man.  His office is that of a civil servant which means he is extremely poorly paid, charging only for medicines and travel.  Tanya pays him double and usually feeds him supper as he comes after work.

Yesterday, Boyna gave us a scare.  We have no idea what happened but he came downstairs dragging his back leg and meowing in pain.  We put him on our bed and even in his sleep he was crying and twitching his leg with the pain.  Touching it hurt him so much.  It seemed swollen.  Andrei came after work to check him out, thought it might be an infection from an earlier fight but couldn't find a break or anything.  Poor Andrei didn't get much of a supper as we had already eaten and there was no bread in the house to even make a sandwich.

Late in the evening, Bonya woke up, jumped off the bed, dragged his leg to the door and demanded to go out.  When Tanya refused he threw a giant hissy-fit, including trying to dump the pail of dry dog food. For that he got pitched into the back porch, bad leg and all.  This morning he favoured the leg a little bit but seemed fine otherwise.  He immediately went outside.

We have been having mild weather after our snow and cold.  It went to +5C and everything melted and everything is wet and muddy.  It even rained.  With three cats going in and out it is impossible to keep their feet clean when they come in the house.  There are muddy tracks everywhere and we just get a damp mop and follow them.  It is easier than trying to catch them at the door ten times a day.

If we don't let them out they get bored and start chasing and fighting each other.  Usually they chase Tigritsa.  If they don't she runs up to one, smacks it upside the head and runs for it.  Once Vovo and Bonya were wrestling and she jumped in and took a round out of Bonya when he was down.

Bonya and Tigritsa are long haired cats, Vovo is smooth haired.  The house if filled with clumps of hair, enough to start a new cat every time we vacuum or sweep.

Tonight we heard a banging on the front door.  It was Bonya wanting in.  Mud to the hocks and carrying a headless mouse.  The muddy floors, the cat hairs and the dead mouse had just about got to Tanya.  Not a good time for me to discover I had stepped in something when I went to feed Volk.

"Dog shit.  Cat shit.  This isn't a house.  It is a barn".





Friday, December 12, 2014

I will do this but first I have to do that.

Tanya is making Christmas (New Years) cards.  Masha is coming Saturday but Tanya couldn't wait.  She asked me to help her find pictures on line and print them to use as decorations on the cards.  Finding was the easy part.

I have a new printer, bought two months ago.  My third Canon in a row had the print head pack it in.  A new one costs as much as the printer and buying Canon ink cartridges which may make the print head last longer is a shortcut to the poorhouse.  So I bought an Epson L355 with large ink reservoirs filled from bottles which are not expensive. So far it has worked great.

Until I went to print on heavy photo stock, which was all I had other than ordinary paper.  This was double matte 250 g/m2 and it would not load.  My one remaining piece of lighter photo stock loaded and printed but not the heavier.

Go to the manual trouble shooting section: nothing.  OK, contact the company.  The L355 is a European model so the website refused to allow me to talk to Canada.  OK, UK. Go to Live Chat.  Nope, my Java is out of date.  Download and install new Java.  Windows 7 has updates waiting so I had to download and install them too.  By the time that was all complete, the UK office was closed so no Live Chat.  Send email.  BUT you have to have a UK address, so I gave them my daughter's in London.  Auto-response says we got it and are open tomorrow.

Today I got a link to their knowledge base which told me that for heavy stock one must use only Epson brand paper.  Link to their website.  Fifteen sheets of A4 photo stock is 11 Pounds Stirling. Which is roughly $20 CAD. NFW.

Catch 22.  Canon prints on anything but ink is like gold.  Epson ink is cheap but their paper is gold plated.  I will see what I can buy tomorrow in the way of lighter stock.



Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Pictures from the Maidan and other things

We found some photos on Tanya's mobile that she had taken on Maidan February 18th when we were in Kyiv.  That was the day the final battle began that ended with Yanukovych and some of his mafioso fleeing the country.  We were in Kyiv applying for Tanya's visa to visit UK, and decided to go to Maidan to see for ourselves what it was like.  At that time, all the news was pretty much controlled by Yanukovych so it was suspect.

We found the Square pretty peaceful, with people coming and going about their business in and around the tent city and barricades.  There were lots of Ukrainian flags and EU flags as well as flags of various parties, including Right Sector and others of the right and left.  This was about noon or somewhat after.  there was smoke pouring into the sky up on the hill in front of the Rada or parliament building and we knew there was action there.  On the train home that night we we sat with a young man from Dnipro who had participated in the fight on the hill.  He was a young businessman who realized the only future for Ukraine was one without Yanukovych and without the layers of corruption.

We got home and turned on the TV to see the Maidan in flames and the Berkut attempting to storm the place but held back by gasoline bomb throwing protesters.  The authorities had closed off the Metro (subway) to prevent reinforcements coming in or people from fleeing.  Anyhow, a few of Tanya's pictures from early afternoon are at the end of this post.

Some links to interesting sites:

NEWS FLASH - this JUST in, a perfect example of Russian lies.

Russia says small military mission in east Ukraine at Kiev's request: RIA


Paul Gregory writes for Forbes and does a wonderfully funny job of describing the trolls and how they work.  Read the comments too as the trolls come out of the woodwork and illustrate his article beautifully.
Putin's New Weapon In The Ukraine Propaganda War: Internet Trolls 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/12/09/putins-new-weapon-in-the-ukraine-propaganda-war-internet-trolls

StopFake.org is a great website dedicated to exposing the lies on Russian media of which there are no end. Just go to the site and hop around to see the kind of thing we are up against.  If you find one of the Stop Fake newscasts, it has English sub-titles.

This video is not well made but does pick out the high spots of Russian fakery.  Especially their use of photos from anywhere which they then claim to be of Ukraine.  Syria, Chechnya, Russia, anywhere but Ukraine and age of picture doesn't matter or if the person is still alive or died years ago.  











Friday, December 5, 2014

Round and round and round it goes...Where it stops no one knows

The war goes on and the talking heads go on and on.

The ATO is now on the defensive only, fighting off attacks from the Russian backed, armed and supported terrorists.  The Cyborgs at the Donetsk airport are still holding out as is the salient at Debaltseve.  Every time a new Russian "Humanitarian convoy" enters Ukraine there is an increase in shelling and rocket fire from the Russian side as they now have more ammunition.  the trucks do not go back empty, they are loaded with the bodies of Russian soldiers that the Kremlin continues to deny are in Ukraine.  They all died in "exercises" near Rostov.

At least the anticipated invasion has not happened yet, though Russian troops and heavy armament continue to be rotated into Ukraine and strategically placed in areas which would certainly come under attack in an all out invasion.

The Russian economy is in the tank with the continuing drop in oil prices which are taking the ruble with it. The joke making the rounds is that Putin, oil and the ruble will all hit 63 in 2015.  Putin approved the next years budget which was written by Hans Christian Anderson Consulting from teh look of it.  $80 oil for starters.

Here is a better summary of the situation than I could write, already written:
nucleardiner.com/2014/12/04/putin-reconsidering-options

Three posts by Paul Goble:

But a better question, Andrey Piontkovsky suggests, is whether Putin himself is ready to die for that northeastern Estonian city at the eastern edge of NATO and the European Union given that the leaders of the West now see him not as a strategic partner but as a strategic “problem” 

Is Putin Prepared to Die for Narva?


 All of these people had sought assistance from state agencies, assistance that they are entitled to under the law. And all had been refused. But rather than allow them to suffer, the Union for the Rebirth of Pskov Kray raised money by various activities, helped with renovations, and secured access to those who would never have had a chance otherwise.

Vadim Shtepa, who lives in Karelia and who supports Ukrainian efforts to defend their nation against Vladimir Putin’s aggression, reflects on this anniversary? “What can one say? The only thing is to wish our Ukrainian friends [in this new Winter War] to be no weaker than the Finns!”


Also if you have an hour, please listen to this presentation by Timothy Snyder on the history of and current situation in Ukraine as it applies across a much broader scope.  He is an excellent speaker and very knowledgeable historian.