A New Kind of Cold War

Russian critics of Putin have been assassinated in a way that only the most brazen of criminal organizations would do. What would possess the Russians to now send such a shamelessly brutal message to the world? There have been a lot of mysteries lately.

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity were fit to be tied by the Iraq Surrender Group and practically dumbfounded. They both said it didn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense until you know the financial and intelligence parts of the story. Without those pieces of the puzzle, none of it makes sense. With the financial and intelligence part, everything makes sense.

The big picture is a panoramic view of intrigue, money and power that stretches back to the time the USSR fell apart:

Back when the USSR fell, the Russian people were, on average, well disposed toward the US. Private enterprise was taking hold from the bottom up during the Bush the elder’s administration. Then Clinton was elected.

Clinton put Gore in charge of American relations with the Russians. Gore formed a close bond with Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin. Chernomyrdin was a crooked politician who looted Russia of its most valuable assets. Al Gore backed him up to the hilt. The Clinton Administration facilitated loans from the United States, the IMF and World Bank.

Even though this looting was reported to the Clinton Administration, they intentionally turned a blind eye, with Gore even writing “Bullshit” across one report. Money flowed into Russia and was promptly looted by well connected people. In essence, Russia was like a machine that pumped money and assets from the Russian people, the American Treasury and the IMF and sent the money into a criminal underground populated by politically well connected people.

Hold in mind that the Russians had all grown up in a system where private ownership was evil. There was no real distinction between big business and big mafia. Thus many of the Russian people saw this as the normal Capitalism they were told about since childhood. With such huge sums of money flowing in to the politically well connected, only top down capitalism flourished. Real free enterprise was crushed under the greedy and occasionally violent grasp of the well connected oligarchs.

Among the most powerful and well connected were the intelligence services. Thus a new entity was born: The Russian Intelligence Mafias. A patchwork of feuding oligarchs and their own intelligence organizations with far more money and freedom to commit crimes than any mafia that had come before. In this crucible an especially virulent and violent form or mafia was forged and established bases of operation throughout the world, including the America.

As the assets shifted to the oligarchs, so did the Clinton Administration policies. Their allegiances followed the money. It was as if the Clintons were doing everything they could do facilitate the looting by new oligarchs. Clinton may have even been blackmailed into maintaining this arrangement. Once the assets had been effectively looted by the oligarchs the personal ties between the Russian government and the Clinton Administration were broken. The money flowing into Russia was cut back, and with their economy destroyed, the system collapsed in the fall of 1989. The crash that occurred in Russia then was more severe than our own Great Depression.

Everyday Russians came to hate the United States since the US’s Clinton and Gore and Capitalism had facilitated the looting of Russia. Capitalism had been shown to be the horror that Communists had always said it was.

This set the stage for the rise of Putin. Even before his term was up, Yeltsin stepped down in favor of Putin at the beginning of 2000. Putin quickly put an end to the looting: The financial bleeding of Russia was mostly halted in early 2000.

Putin called a meeting of oligarchs to his office and told them the party was over. Many fled, were jailed or killed. Not coincidentally, the American stock markets which had risen sharply since the Clinton election suddenly dropped as the looted assets were no longer available to be laundered into the American stock market. However, the Russian economy rebounded.

The party was indeed over, as assets were re-seized. First the most valuable: Yukos, Gazprom, and then later other assets. This continued into last week’s taking of the 20 billion dollar Sakhalin project from Shell. The Sakhalin project had been the largest single foreign investment in Russia. British Petroleum’s project is now under new threat. Russia’s threats to cut off gas supplies in winter to formerly subservient Eastern Europe nations is another example of Putin’s heavy handed approach to taking control of Russia’s energy assets.

Putin also immediately increased military spending and he approved brutal attacks of the Chechens. This not only saved their military, it also gave them something military to do. He boosted and legitimized the profitable sales of weapons to Iran, Syria and Saddam’s Iraq. This helped support the Russian military technology base and preserved the secret military technology towns in Russia that had been falling apart.

If there was an enemy of America that needed military technical products and services, Putin provided it. Shocking even many in his own government, Putin even made friendly with North Korea in 2001, inviting Kim Jong Ill for a visit. The Islamofascists in Iraq, Iran and Syria had been customers of Russia’s illicit military hardware marketers for years. With Putin this market was now legitimized.

The well being of the Russian economy is largely tied to the price of oil, because it is now the worlds largest producer of oil. Anything that destroys the output of oil from the other OPEC nations, and thus raises oil prices is good for Russia’s bottom line. Thus having a bunch of Islamofascists getting delusions of grandeur and a taste for Russian war hardware was apt to raise the price of oil and help the Russian economy.

From a purely economic standpoint it was a bold and successful financial strategy. It was as if Putin had said: “You want to have us compete as capitalists? We will beat you at your own game by becoming the most ruthless bloodthirsty capitalists the world has ever seen.”

Let’s face it: Those Islamic hotheads in the Middle East are just useful idiots for the Russians. Given the opportunity to buy military hardware, it is a sure thing they will do so. It is also a sure thing that they will use it on their neighbors in due time.

Islamic jihadis and their ilk buy military hardware and services from the Russians. Jihadis disrupt the Middle East oil supplies and thus raise the price of oil. They engage Russia’s old enemy America in costly battles. Jihadis deplete the wealth and military capability of America. The Russians get a financially sound way to support their military research and development people. No Russian lives or fortune are needed to achieve their political and economic ends. What more could the Russians ask for?

Russia has been at this arms supply game even before the Soviet fall in 1991. Saddam had these military delusions of grandeur and launched an attack against Iran in 1980, and then later Kuwait in 1990. He was beaten back, but once again persisted, with newly increased Russian help, and it became obvious that America had to engage Saddam in the second and current Iraq war. Russian nuclear assistance to Iran goes back to 1995.

Even as our troops were fighting on the ground, the Russians were feeding military intelligence to Saddam’s officers. While American and British forces were preparing for invasion, delays were oiled with corruption through the food for oil program and the United Nations. There is no real distinction between Russian facilitated black market weapons deals of the past and other corrupt mafia mediated deals of the present.

The Russian state and the Russian mafia have become indistinguishable.In order to bring back the glory of Russia and survive their economic demise, they have become a new entity: a massive criminal state. It is a monstrosity of big business which, in the Russian mind, is no different from big mafia. They set an example for criminal ventures by Al Qaeda, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and the Iraqi insurgency.

Without Russia’s support, there would be no Iranian nuclear crisis, no Saddam invading Kuwait, and no WMD in Iraq. China also plays the same game alongside Russia: earning weapons profits and humiliating capitalist America. They use the same strategy for most of the same reasons. However, Russia is more intent on spreading chaos because Russia, unlike China, is the world’s largest oil exporter.

When we engage a nuclear Iran, fight for the free people of Iraq, and deal with the brinkmanship of North Korea, there are others standing safely in the shadows behind them. These others are egging them on with weaponry and intelligence, and ultimately profiting from the wars that result. The Islamofascists are just useful idiots for Russia to use in a new Cold War against American financial, intelligence, and military interests.