Will Europe Stop It? Or What?

Having read first coverages of the terroristic attack in Brussels (I love this city; I was thereto about 30 years ago, in 1985 and 1986. I undertsand the city has surely changed meanwhile, yet I do love the you know sweet remembrances of youth) in major media, I remembered an old piece from the Washington Post. It's rather small; I quote it in full.

Why Russia can't stop terrorists
Thursday, January 27, 2011; 8:04 PM
THE HORRIFIC suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport on Monday underlined a couple of sad conclusions about Russia's battle against terrorism. One is that the country's security services, unlike their counterparts in Europe and North America, have failed to develop the means to uncover terrorist networks, prevent attacks or protect public spaces such as airports and subway systems. No country's police can guarantee security. But in Russia over the past decade, as Vladimir Putin has cited the threat of terrorism in consolidating a domestic police state, Moscow alone has suffered eight major attacks, along with the destruction of two airplanes that took off from Domodedovo. Casualties have been heavy: At least 35 died and more than 200 were injured in the latest strike.
Second, Mr. Putin's autocratic form of rule and imperialist policy toward non-Russian nations has made it impossible for him to resolve - or even seriously address - the underlying problem that fuels most of the attacks. That is the restiveness of the mostly Muslim republics of the North Caucasus, including Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, which for the past two decades have been seeking more autonomy from Moscow. Russia's brutal response, including Mr. Putin's scorched-earth campaign in Chechnya, fueled the rise of Muslim extremist groups that have been growing steadily stronger despite nonstop counterterrorism operations. According to official Russian reports, the number of terrorist attacks in the Caucasus doubled in 2010 - though the bloodshed gets little attention when it occurs outside Moscow or other Russian cities.
Mr. Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev sometimes seem to recognize that sweeps by security forces will never stop the terrorists. Mr. Medvedev has blamed the "economic backwardness" of the Caucasus, and Mr. Putin has promoted a development plan under which the central government will invest $13 billion in the region over the next decade. That could do some good if the programs don't fall victim to Russia's endemic corruption. But the Kremlin leaders won't seriously address the issue of self-rule for the republics. Nor are they willing to take on the federal secret police and other security services, which are more skilled at protection rackets and the persecution of political dissidents than in detecting terrorist plots. It was telling that in the aftermath of the bombing, Mr. Medvedev blamed the management of the privately operated airport rather than federal officials responsible for counterterrorism.
What's particularly worrying about the regime's failures is that Russia is due to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, on the edge of the Caucasus. The International Olympic Committee's unwise decision to accept Russia's bid means that athletes and governments around the world have to depend on the Putin-Medvedev regime to prevent terrorist disruption of the Games. Monday's attack was a reminder of how risky a bet that is.

It's an unsigned editorial piece; I take it for, say, an official position and viewpoint of the editorial office.


Having the recent events in Brussels on mind, I dare to put up some notes and questions, going backwards through the text above.

Should Rhodes Stay?

The BBC informs, Oriel College at Oxford University for some reasons decided to keep the statue of Cecil Rhodes on its building.

Reuters image from the BBC publication.

This decision is strongly opposed by "Rodes Must Fall" campaigners. THis campaign succeeded in South Africa, where a Rhodes statue was removed. The idea was adopted in Oxford by activists students insisting that Rhodes' views were incompatible with the modern 'inclusive culture'.

I have no doubt his views are incompatible. How could we expect it other way, talking about a British imperialistic (and as such, surely white) politician of 19th century?

The matter is that history was just the way it was. One can remove a statue, but no one can change history. History is to be studied, its lessons are to help us here, today, avoid mistakes of the past, and find better ways to future that is supposed to be better than the present and way better than the past.

What They Say Putin Said

The current year started with a prominent interview of Vladimir Putin to the German Bild. He spoke to German journalists on January 5.

Here goes the "original" German version. Why did I put the word 'original' in the quotation marks? The answer is pretty simple: it is a German text; that means, a translation of the words our president said to the interviewing staff in Russian.

For those of you, who do not speak or even understand German, the title goes: "Why Did Putin Frighten Merkel With His Dog". And the subtitle below: "Vladimir Putin explains his world: the NATO is agressive, Merkel is earnest, and the Russian Crimea is a God's justice".

You like it or not, that's what the Bild wrote in German.

Being a major German paper, they published the English translation of the interview as well. Here it is.

Is Erdoğan a Man of His Word?

Yesterday Al-Jazeera quoted Recep Tayyip Erdoğan:

I will say something very strong here. If such a thing is proven, the nobility of our nation would require that I would not stay in office.

So he commented recent Vladimir Putin's accusations that Turkey had shot down the Russian Su-24 to protect oil supplies from ISIL.

Meanwhile, earlier today Elissa Smith of Pentagon told RIA Novosti:

We reject the assumption that the Turkish government is in arrangement to IS for oil smuggling. We didn't see any proofs in support of such charges.

Come on, people, here are the proofs as presented today by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Cameron's 70,000 Moderate Fighters and Freedom of Speech

Sometimes reading Western media reveils true gems of journalism (albeit seldom without some specific Western taste).

Now it's Independent and an article of Robert Fisk titled "David Cameron, there aren't 70,000 moderate fighters in Syria - and whoever heard of a moderate with a Kalashnikov, anyway?". You are very welcome to follow the link and read it yourself, it well worth it.

However, the author cannot just pass by, leaving Russia untouched.

Vladimir Putin comprehends this. He knows that Turkey is helping Isis – this is why he is going to destroy the Isis oil smuggling route to Turkey – and, as a former serving KGB officer, he understands the cynicism of any crisis. If an American aircraft had strayed into Turkish airspace, he asked at his Kremlin press conference with François Hollande last week, does anyone believe that Turkey would have shot down the US pilots? We all know the answer to that. If Turkey wished to destroy Isis, why does it bombard Isis’ Kurdish enemies? Why does it imprison two of Turkey’s top journalists for reporting how the Turkish intelligence service smuggled weapons to Islamist fighters in Syria? And Putin is hardly going to object if the EU is bent on suicide-through-fear.

You know what?

The EU members do remember, I hope, advantages of unification and joining forces. So do we, former citizens of the Soviet Union. It's just natural, for people to unite. And unnatural — to disintegrate. The USSR fell apart due to problems carefully fed up by external forces using hot and cold warfare; and it became a geopolitical tragedy that cost tens millions of lives; at least 13 millions for Russia alone; quite close to losses in the WW2.

Now some external forces are striving to blast the EU from inside. And it looks like some people see some profit Russia could get of it. I would greatly appreciate if you explain me the reasons of such thoughts; I just do not see any advantages for Russia from Europe in flames.

It looks like authors are just obliged to bite Russia and/or Putin at least once. In the "world of democratical rights and freedoms" only that speech is free, which is politically correct and meets some "corporate standards", isn't it?

Daily Routine of Russophobia

You might well hear accusations of the Western media in Russophobia. Yet it's not just some propaganda rhetorics of the Kremlin; it's just the daily routine the Western media follow. A bright example of that has recently appeared in the Huffington Post.

Let's follow the statements of some blonde "world reporter" Charlotte Alfred.

It was the worst aviation disaster in Russian history and the deadliest terrorist attack targeting Russians in over a decade. Yet many Russians know little about the victims of Metrojet Flight 9268.

Russian authorities released the passenger manifest -- which included 209 Russian citizens and at least 25 children -- but their personal stories have not been widely covered in the Russian press.

“It’s shocking in comparison to when tragedies happen in Western countries, when there are photos of the victims and comments on social media,” said Tonia Samsonova. Samsonova is a founder of Russian-language social network The Question and a U.K.-based correspondent for the Echo of Moscow, regarded as Russia's most liberal radio station.

The lack of coverage has repercussions on public perceptions of the tragedy, said Valery Nechay, a Russia-based journalist for the station.

“People become more involved in the story when they know the images and stories, and not just a number -- 224 victims,” he told The WorldPost.

There are just two statements that are 100% correct: it indeed was the worst aviation disaster in the the Soviet and Russian history, and that a passenger manifest was released.

All the other stuff is lies, pure or covered, arrogant or ignorant, does not matter.

The Fine Art of Quiet Propaganda

A good propaganda does not necessarily mean to say something; sometimes it is absolutely effective to keep silence of this or that.

The Russian Service of BBC has recently announced a new OECD publication, "Health at a Glance 2015". Speaking about the life expectancy in different countries, an anonimous writer states:

Russia has one of the most unsignificant growth figure. As the organization says, in the 1970-s the average life expectancy of a Russian person was 68 years, and it increased to 71 years in 2013. Lithuania and Latvia showed comparable growth, though their figures were approximately one or two years more than that of Russia (73.9 and 73.5 years, correspondingly)...

What would an average British, or German, or, say, American citizen understand out of such a piece of data? While all the civilized world was steadily growing the life expectancy of its population, those evil Russians under their evil tyranny of Vladimir Putin almost stagnated, falling far behind the advanced nations. Putin must leave the Kremlin and let Russians live long and healthy lives!

And it would be a total and complete moronic bullshit, carefully created by pretty skilled in Russophobic matters BBC's staff.

'Cuz there were some events in between the 1970s and 2013 in Russia, you know.

When "the best German" Gorbi destroyed our country, and then betrayer and drunkard Yeltsin destroyed its economy, we had some troubles, you know. Statistics says, about 13 millions of Russian people prematurely died — losing the cold war turned out to be a quite bit hot for us Russians. My beloved father died at 63, and his early death belongs to this count as well.

So, when you come across some piece of news about Russia, it can in fact be a piece of shit prepared by skilled hands of propaganda cooks; and it's your choice whether to eat it or not.

With all my due thanks and best regards to blogger Fritzmorgen for the idea and picture.

The Best Way to Know What Russia Does in Syria

...is to get to the sources, and one of the most reliable ones is the Russian Ministry of Defence, which provides much information first hand.

The only minor problem is that their English is sometimes worse than mine (though, as I wrote well before, my English is not perfect at all — as it is not my native language). Anyhow, together we can do it closer to perfection than ever before.

Today, their piece of news goes a bit beyond the regular warfare chronicles, and this 'beyond' is the most interesting part of it.

Russian Ministry of Defence comments on publications appeared in a number of anglophone media quoting some “medics” of the “Syrian American Medical Society” concerning Syrian civilians who were killed by air strikes of the Russian aircraft carried out against a “hospital” in Sarmin settlement on October 20.

Russian Ministry of Defence is carefully monitoring and analyzing such stovepiping.

First, it is necessary to tell about the Syrian American Medical Society. This organization, which is registered in the American State of Illinois, has as much to do with both medicine and medics as ISIS has to do with the international Scout Movement.

Since its foundation in 2012, the organization was mainly used for publishing so-called “evidence” of using chemical weapons against the Syrian opposition. When it became evident all those "evidences" wee lies, the “agency” laid low quietly.

Truth Has Witnesses

Here is a short video of Russian missiles flying to their ISIL targets somewhere over the so called Kurdistan on the early morning of October 7, 2015.

But this video tells us a bit more than one could imagine at the first sight.

Even in some faraway from the modern civilization centres region of Middle East, Asia, at a very early time of the day, local people have sufficient media to effectively capture a pretty spontaneous event and upload video in Internet. Here, I suppose, it was Instagram originally (square frame + 15 sec. duration).

So, the questions arisen from this short video are:

Where are the proofs of Russian aggression against Ukraine Kiev regime and its supporters have been crying of for about a year and a half?

Who did shoot down the Malaysian Boeing?

And, by the way, what for did they invest in construction of a funny fence along the Ukrainian-Russian border?

If You don't Know What to Say, Blame Russia!

In a few minutes after the Russian airforse hit their first targets in Syria, that is, after the US media informed of the fact, a storm of bullshit came.

Let's have a closer look on one of its waves, the Daily Mail of the UK. Here's what they write on the matter:

... none of the areas reportedly targeted by Russian strikes are in any of the three provinces known to have an ISIS presence.

The areas struck in Homs are mostly controlled by Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, while those hit in Latakia are mostly controlled by a coalition known as the Army of Conquest, which includes Al-Nusra.

The areas targeted in Hama are controlled mostly by Islamist and moderate rebel groups.

You got it? 

Bad Russia mistakenly hit good old Al-Qaeda instead of ISIS. Nice. Do you need apologies?

DailyMail did my day. One Syrian asshole sitting in Coventry in no time counted killed civilians, and mass media started to spread it, as good soldiers of their sergeant. Or puppets of thir master.

If you don't know what to say, blame Russia/Putin of everything. People used to eat it.

But... you know what? We just don't care of various kinds of shit.

I am Russian, and I am proud again.

"If you have forces in the area, we request they leave."

RFE/RL Has Gone Too Far

Today is September 1.

Among many events, that happened in history on this day, it was 11 years ago that a group of terrorists captured hundreds of schoolchildren and some adults oin the town of Beslan (North Ossetia/Russia).

Here is how the RFE/RL, "Radio Svoboda" remembers this bloody event.

The text accompanying a photogallery of Andrey Korolev, is pretty short, just two sentences.

On Septemder, 1 it will be 11 years since terrorists captured hostages in school No. 1 of Beslan (North Ossetia). Three days later as a result of the assault on the school, 314 hostages were killed, including 186 children.

Mainstream Media at Work

An image that says it all.

And it's not only Ukraine. Reading (or watching, or listening to) Western media, you'd be always aware that you may be getting quite a perversed image of reality.

It is surely not an easy job to think different under a coordinated pressure of mass media of US and EU that turned long ago into media of mass disinformation; yet it well worth giving a try. Being a human, not just a being.