NORWAY, RUSSIA, OIL AND GAS

Dub alerts us to:

21 July 2011 - "A treaty between Russia and Norway paves the way toward bilateral energy work on the arctic continental shelf...

"Oslo and Moscow enacted a treaty July 7 regarding cooperation in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean...

"The July 7 treaty allows both sides to explore for oil and gas on the arctic continental shelf...

"Arctic resources could contain as much as 13 percent of the world's unexplored oil reserves and 30 percent of unexplored natural gas."

Oslo, Moscow review arctic oil and gas

"Norway officially expanded its territory in the Barents Sea this week, when its newly agreed offshore border with Russia took effect just over a year after a breakthrough in lengthy negotiations with the Russians was announced.

"Now a Russian researcher thinks Norway can tap into more oil and gas resources than it’s enjoyed in the entire North Sea."

Norway now bigger in the Barents

Image from: Why the West Can’t Resist This Norway Massacre Psy-Op

Richard Cottrell is a TV journalist and former UK Conservative Member of the European Parliament.

On 25 July 2011, Richard Cottrell, in his blog, suggests that Oslo is Down to the New World Order

Richard Cottrell suggests that the Norway Attacks are designed to force Norway to change its policies.

The attacks are designed to force Norway to follow the policies of the US-Israel-NATO alliance.

It's all about regime change.

According to Cottrell:

1. The Norwegians are out of line across a whole range of US/NATO policies, including the Palestinian recognition issue and Libya.

Norway has stayed out of the European Union.

Norway has socialist protectionist methods of running its economy.

Norway's economy is successful and beyond the control of Wall Street.

Norway refuses to open its protected oil, gas and fishing grounds.

Israeli companies and interests are not welcome and, just before the bombings, two Israeli firms were thrown out of the country.

2. Other European countries also have doubts about the US-Israel-NATO policies.

As poll after poll demonstrates, the Spanish would vote solidly to march out of the alliance tomorrow afternoon.

3. Norway is more than a nuisance.

So the result is the Norway Attacks.


Image from SS&SS

4. Starting about eighteen months ago, the US and NATO began planting agents in the Norwegian police, security agencies and the military.

Similar tactics have been traced to Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Portugal.

5. The Norway Attacks are straight out of the Operation Gladio manual of false flag terror.

It is the Strategy of Tension.

All the telltale indicators are present.

A. The usual confused patsy.

B. Witnesses insist they saw other shooters in action.

C. The police were messing about with real bombs and explosives in downtown Oslo just 48 hours or so earlier.

Gladio units were fully behind that.

6. Israeli intelligence is certainly in the frame but so is the New World Order.

Aside from the US and NATO, there's the IMF and the World Bank, and the corrupted international bankocracy.

NATO is the global military arm of the US and various western interests.

7. The object is to cannibalize Norway (exactly like Libya).

8. As Michael Ledeen is supposed to have once said, to ‘take a small country and slap it against the wall, just to show we mean business.’


Richard Cottrell's new book is Gladio: NATO’s Dagger at the Heart of Europe will be published by Progressive Press this autumn.

Richard Cottrell's blog

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Michael Ledeen is a neoconservative Zionist and a former employee of the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council.

Peter Chamberlin has written NEOCONSERVATISM - FASCIST ZIONISM and he links Ledeen to:

1. The fascist false-flag terrorism in Italy associated with Operation Gladio.

(The Bologna Bomb 1980, Gladio, terrorism in Europe)

2. The Niger yellow cake forged documents.

3. The Iran/contra affair.

4. The events of 9 11.

Michael Ledeen, Gladio and 9 11.

RUSSIAN PLANE CRASH SABOTAGE?

Photo: AP

The Russian nuclear experts killed in the plane crash, in Russia, on 20 June 2011, helped design a nuclear facility in Iran.

Iranian nuclear scientists have in the past been involved in unexplained accidents and plane crashes.

Designer of Indian N-reactor killed in Russian plane crash

Sergei Ryzhov, the chief designer of the nuclear reactors built by Russia in foreign countries, including India, was among those killed.

The whole leadership of the designers units of Russia's state nuclear corporation was killed when the Tu-134 passenger plane crash landed in the northern republic of Karelia.

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Many thanks to C. for the link.

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THE SYRIA CONSPIRACY

The revolutions are run by the CIA, Mossad and NATO, with help from the Saudis and others.

On 19 June 2011, at voltairenet, Thierry Meyssan has an article entitled "The plan to destabilize Syria" ]

(Aangirfan's comments are in italics)

According to Meyssan:

1. It was John Bolton who, in 2002, introduced the plan to break up both Syria and Libya simultaneously.

(Reportedly Bolton is Jewish and the 'Arab Spring' is supported by Israel - The JEWS who Run the USA)

2. The original plan was to bring about military coups in Syria and Libya.

This failed , due to the lack of willing military officers.

(The generals in Tunisia and Egypt were part of the CIA coups which toppled Ben Ali and Mubarak)

3. In Syria, the American idea was to stir up unrest, near Jordan and the Golan Heights, and set up an Islamic emirate.

Syria would then be broken up.

4. An incident was contrived involving students who engaged in provocations.

(In Tunisia and Egypt we saw the same 'false flag' incidents organised by CIA-Mossad-NATO forces)

When demonstrations began, snipers on roofs shot at random into the crowd and against the police forces.

Similar tricks were used in Benghazi, in Libya, to fuel the revolt.

Other clashes were planned, near Syria's borders with Lebanon and Turkey.

5. The clashes were led by foreign mercenaries belonging to Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan's network.

The clashes were organised in Jordan by the CIA, Mossad and Bandar.


Syria by spdl_n1

6. Syria's President Bashar al-Assad "is undeniably the most popular political leader in the Middle East."

"Up to two months ago, he was also the only one who moved around without armed guards, and felt comfortable in a crowd."

7. Bandar has had help from such countries as Pakistan and Malaysia.

8. The vast majority of Syrians are supporting their president, Bashar al-Assad.

Syria has developed a multiparty system.

9. In order to destroy Syria, the USA aims to freeze Syria's assets and block its sales of oil.

An asset freeze requires a resolution by the UN Security Council.

If China opposed a freeze, it would lose access to vital Saudi oil.

Russia could oppose a freeze.

However, the USA has attempted to bully Russia by placing its guided-missile cruiser, the USS Monterrey, in the Black Sea.

(Russia's only naval base in the Mediterranean is in Syria)

Nazi NATO's murder of babies in Libya.

10. There is a propaganda war against Syria.

This has included the blog "Gay Girl in Damascus".

This turned out to be written by an American propagandist.

In fact Syria is secular and homosexuality is not curbed.

It is the opponents of the Syrian president who are extremist Islamist homophobes.

And, it was the anti-Gaddafi forces in Libya who hunted down and lynched black Africans.

Syrian TV showed armed groups on rooftops firing at random into the crowd and at the police.

When these images were shown on Western TV, it was dishonestly claimed that those doing the firing were the forces of the Syrian government, rather than the forces of the CIA-Mossad.

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THE USA VERSUS BRICS

A. Is the USA powerless against the BRICS - the 'alliance' of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa?

Are the Rothschilds and Rockefellers powerless against the BRICS?

B. We assume that China can be put under pressure by the 'organisation' of riots (Chinese riots enter third day).

And India 'kept under control' by people such as 'CIA agent' David Headley.

Perhaps India and China can be persuaded to go to war against each other, thus weakening both?

China is backing Pakistan which is a rival to India. (If India and Pakistan Come to Nuclear Blows, Blame US: Mishra)

Presumably some of the top people in the BRICS already work for the CIA and its friends. ("KASAB WAS INTERROGATED BY HEADLEY")

Note Russia's opposition to Gaddafi. (Russia urges Gaddafi's departure, offers aid to opposition)



C. On 15 June 2011, Russia's General Leonid Ivashov wrote an article entitled BRICS and the Mission of Reconfiguring the World

Ivashov points out:

1. Countries which defy the USA, and defy dollar dominance, tend to be attacked by the USA.

Think of Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Gaddafi's Libya.

2. However, "the financial empires built by the Rothschilds and Rockefellers are powerless against the BRICS."

The BRICS account for nearly half of the world’s population.

Three of them are nuclear-armed.

BRICS "do not appear vulnerable to colour revolutions or to the strategy of provoking and exporting financial crises."

BRICS own vast natural resources.

3. In April 20011, a BRICS summit denounced the use of force against Libya.

4. BRICS should link with Iran, Syria, Malaysia, and Turkey.

There should be a BRICS common market.

And a BRICS shared security framework.

5. Two processes are going on.

On the one hand, attempts are being made to establish a 'world government', run by the 'main financial empires'.

To help achieve this, various crises, armed conflicts, and calamities are provoked.

On the other hand, an alternative world order is increasingly visible - BRICS, along with its potential partner the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

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Anonymous left this comment:

Ian Crane shares some ideas about why he thinks Japan was targeted.

"Statement by the Press Secretary, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Japan, on the situation in East Jerusalem, February 10, 20111.

The Government of Japan is concerned about the Jerusalem municipal planning committee’s approval of a plan to build housing units for Jewish people in the Sheih Jarrah of East Jerusalem.

Such act goes against the efforts by the international community to resume the negotiations.

2. The Government of Japan does not recognize any act that prejudges the final status of the territories in the pre-1967 borders nor Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem.

Japan urges Israel to refrain from any unilateral act that changes the current situation in East Jerusalem."

http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/announce/2011/2/0210_02.html [36:10]

He links Fukushima to the largest E.coli breakout, resistant to penicillin, in Germany.

It seems Germany has been keeping an eye on world events.

They've also been the forefront resistance against the EU's plan to use GM crops.

Now they're shutting down pre 1980 nuclear plants and winding down the nuclear program.

Has biological warfare been released upon Germany?

Germany and Japan have both voted against Israel. Germany for the first time.

http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2011/06/RIR-110616-icrane.mp3

CHINA BEFRIENDS PHILIPPINES, INDONESIA, PAKISTAN; RUSSIA BEFRIENDS PAKISTAN

The vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission meets with Sjafrie Sjamsuddin, secretary general of Indonesia's Defense Ministry, in Beijing, in 2009.

A number of countries are growing closer to China, at a time when Pakistan, and others, fear being attacked by the USA and its allies.

(KISSINGER SEES WAR BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN)

There is a fear that the 'Osama incident' in Abbottabad may be used to weaken Pakistan.

This is ironic if OSAMA 'WAS AN AMERICAN CITIZEN'

1. In May 2011, the Chinese Defence Minister has been visiting Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore.

Indonesian Vice President Boediono met with visiting Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie in Jakarta on 21 May 2011.

"Boediono said that the bilateral relations between Indonesia and China have grown rapidly since the two countries established a strategic partnership...

"He said Indonesia attaches great importance to enhancing comprehensive cooperation with China, including the cooperation in defense and security..."

Indonesian VP meets with visiting Chinese defense minister /Indonesia Calls For Strong Defence Cooperation With China

2. "China's Defense Minister General Liang Guanglie will be in the Philippines from May 21 to 25, 2011, having previously visited Singapore and Indonesia as part of his Southeast Asian tour.

"The visit is expected to further advance China-Philippines friendly relations, specifically military exchanges and pragmatic cooperation." (China exec's visit d)

3. According to Webster Tarpley, on 20 May 2011: The USA and Pakistan are near Open War; A Chinese Ultimatum Warns Washington ...

"China has officially put the United States on notice that Washington's planned attack on Pakistan will be interpreted as an act of aggression against Beijing.

"This blunt warning represents the first known strategic ultimatum received by the United States in half a century, going back to Soviet warnings during the Berlin crisis of 1958-1961, and indicates the grave danger of general war growing out of the US-Pakistan confrontation."

4. On whose side is Russia?

Pakistan Allied with China and Russia Islamabad Globe

After the US raid on the 'Osama compound' "the support for Islamabad has come from Beijing, Moscow, Istanbul, Riyadh, and a host of other countries...

"Moscow has signaled superb support to Islamabad, and doubled it up with billions of Dollars of projects.

"Unlike US aid that only corrupts and bribes, and fills the pockets of US contractors, Russian aid has built steel mills and other infrastructures that have benefited the country and provided employment to thousands."

(Many thanks to Entity for some of the links.)

KISSINGER SEES WAR BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Kissinger does not want India and Pakistan to be friends?

What are Henry Kissinger's plans for Pakistan, India, Russia and China?

How can they all be made weaker, to the advantage of the USA?

How about a war; with India and Russia against Pakistan and China?

On 21 May 2011, in the Financial Times, Henry Kissinger talks to Simon Schama

"Kissinger laughs even as he sketches a scenario for ... Afghanistan."

Kissinger suggests that Afghanistan might become split into two parts.

One part would be run by Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban.

The other part would be run by India, Russia and Afghanistan's Northern Alliance.

"What might happen, he says, is a de facto partition, with India and Russia reconstituting the Northern Alliance, and Pakistan hooked to the Taliban as a backstop against their own encirclement."

India, Russia, China and Brazil. How do you break up the friendship?

Kissinger sees the possibility of a world war, sparked off by an assassination.

Schama reports:

"The prospect looms of a centennial commemoration of the first world war through a half-awake re-enactment.

"Not Belgium but Sarajevo."

Kissinger refers to a frightened Pakistan lashing out.

Schama reports:

"Think proxy half-states; the paranoia of encirclement; the bristling arsenals, in this case nuclear; the nervous, beleaguered Pakistanis lashing out in passive-aggressive insecurity."

According to Kissinger:

"An India-Pakistan war becomes more probable.

"Eventually.

"Therefore some kind of international process in which these issues are discussed might generate enough restraints so that Pakistan does not feel itself encircled by India and doesn’t see a strategic reserve in the Taliban.

"Is it possible to do this? I don’t know.

"But I know if we let matters drift this could become the Balkans of the next world war."

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Mumbai, the Hoax Phone Call, La Belle Disco

An India-Pakistan war could be like the Iran-Iraq war ...

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Libyans killed by French to take their organs for transplant - Blogspot

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LIBYA, THEN RUSSIA AND CHINA?

Muttasim Gaddafi, who reportedly once plotted against his father.

We imagine that many of the top people in Libya have long been working for the CIA and its friends.

There will be CIA-generals and Loyal-to-Gaddafi generals.

Worryingly, NATO may use the unrest as pretext to invade Libya.

The USA's 'Delta Force' entered Libya in 1984. ("How Delta Force Works")

Are they back again?

Saif Gaddafi, friend of the Rothschilds.

Can Gaddafi trust his own children?

Gaddafi's adopted daughter Hannah was murdered by the USA in 1986.

Saif, the president's second-eldest son, runs a charity called the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation.

It has sent hundreds of tons of aid to Haiti. (Gaddafi's sons and their lavish spending)

Saif "has extremely powerful friends in Britain, among them Prince Andrew and the Rothschilds as well as Peter Mandelson." (Gaddafi heir Saif inevitably is a friend of Andy and Mandy)

Saif did a PhD at the London School of Economics, a place that reportedly recruits spies.

Saif and Prince Andrew "have a mutual close friend, the Kazakh-born socialite and businesswoman Goga Ashkenazy."

Nat and Saif and Nat Rothschild "have a friend in common, Oleg Deripaska." (Gaddafi heir Saif inevitably is a friend of Andy and Mandy )

Sa'adi, third-eldest son, has been a professional footballer and has had problems with drugs and alcohol. (WikiLeaks cables: A guide to Gaddafi's 'famously fractious' family.)

Mutassim Gaddafi, the fourth son, is currently National Security Advisor.

He spent years in Egypt after allegedly plotting to oust his father. (France24 - The Gaddafi family tree)

Ayesha, a Gaddafi daughter, joined the defence team of the fake Saddam Hussein.

She is a 'UN Goodwill Ambassador'.


The Land Destroyer blog (The Middle East & then the World) reports that the CIA plans are revealed in the RAND Corporation's 2007 report entitled "Building Moderate Muslim Networks" and the Brookings Institute's "Which Path to Persia?".

The chief targets are still Russia and China.

And they have already been infiltrated.

According to Land Destroyer:

"Men like Mikhail Khodorkovsky ... began building networks of NGOs modeled directly after those of the Anglo-Americans in the West, even naming this network the 'Open Russian Foundation' after George Soros' Open Society Foundation.

"According to geopolitical researcher William Engdahl, this Open Russian Foundation included Henry Kissinger and Lord Jacob Rothschild on its board of directors and its goal was to transform Russia from a sovereign state and into something more palatable for globalist consumption."

Thanks to Putin, Khodorkovsky is now in jail.

Freedom House's list of "Who's Next" includes: Belarus and the Ukraine.

"The globalists' hope is to renew political unrest in Russia's satellite regions." (Land Destroyer)


Libda's Gallery

The globalists are keeping an eye on China which buys oil from the Sudan and Iran.

Chinese has been building ports in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

The US Strategic Studies Institute's (SSI) suggests that China can either join the New World Order or face military confrontation. (Land Destroyer)

"The US ... is attempting to balkanize Pakistan ... specifically the Baluchistan region where China is establishing a naval presence...

"The US is also heavily involved in destabilizing Myanmar (Burma)..."

Strategically important Thailand "has suffered multiple attempts by the US to affect regime change.

"Their man, Thaksin Shinawatra is an overt globalist, having formally served as an adviser to the Carlyle Group... (The Middle East & then the World)

Tripoli by Sammy Naas

What about South America?

Recently Argentina seized weapons and drugs onboard a US Air Force plane.

"This is leading many, including the government of Argentina, to believe the US is staging another round of destabilization efforts in South America." (The Middle East & then the World)

Venezuela and Bolivia are among the countries that have recently been targeted by the CIA.

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Thanks to Brian for this link: BBC News Africa Mandela welcomes 'brother leader' Gaddafi

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EGYPT COUP TO COUNTER RUSSIA, CHINA & BRAZIL?

Was the coup in Egypt partly about putting into power people who would promote the business and military interests of the USA?

Paul Amar is a Jewish journalist of French origin and an Associate Professor of Global & International Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara.

He has written: Why Egypt's Progressives Win, and Why Mubarak is Out - Jadaliyya

Among the points made:

1. Under Mubarak, Egypt made multi-billion dollar deals with Russia, China and Brazil.

In Egypt, Russian has several free-trade zones and manufacturing settlements, and China has invested in all parts of the Egyptian economy.

Brazil, Turkey, the Central Asian Republics and the Gulf Emirates are diversifying their investments.

2. On 5 February, Gamal Mubarak, who had been associated with deals with foreigners, was forced out of his position in the main political party.

3. The Egyptian Intelligence Services, and some parts of the military, loathed Gamal Mubarak and have long, intimate relationships with the CIA and the American military.

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Mubarak in China.

When might Israel, and the USA, have decided to topple Mubarak?

In 1981 President Mubarak came to power and he "has effectively boycotted Israel.

"Egypt's state-controlled newspapers continued to demonize Israel.

"All ties on the bilateral level between Egypt and Israel have been frozen including tourism, commerce, and industry." (Egypt and Israel: A Reversible Peace :: Middle East Quarterly)

Under Mubarak, Egypt became stronger economically and militarily; too strong for Israel to attack.

Lebanon

In 1991, the CIA's Muslim Brotherhood began pressing more strongly for a strict Islamic state.

In 1999, Mubarak visited China.

He signed a joint communique with Chinese President Jiang Zeming on establishing a strategic and cooperative relationship between Egypt and China.

In 2002: Mubarak denounced Israel

Mubarak made a televised speech bitterly condemning Israel and accusing it of using state terrorism to crush the Palestinians.

Mubarak said that following their barbaric and systematic aggression, the Israelis were in the process of destroying evidence of the horrendous crimes perpetrated under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

In 2003: Mubarak opposed the Iraq invasion.

In 2003: Israel protested Egypt's use of unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, to spy on Israeli military facilities.

Israel reportedly threatened to shoot down the drones whose flights violate the peace treaty and prompted increased concern over Egypt's military buildup (Jerusalem Post, December 21, 2003) (Myth and Fact: Egypt's Peace Treaty with Israel)

Egypt has purchased Scud missiles from North Korea and is believed to possess chemical weapons (Center for Strategic and International Studies, United Nations (UN) Institute for Disarmament Research). (Myth and Fact: Egypt's Peace Treaty with Israel)

Israel wants the Sinai?

In March 2010, it was reported that Mubarak had cancer.

In April 2010, it was reported that a weekly magazine aiming to link Arab bloggers with politicians and the elderly was launched in Egypt at the initiative of a group backed by US billionaire George Soros. (Soros backs Egypt weekly to give Arab bloggers exposure.)

In April 2010, it was reported by the Jerusalem Post that "Egypt has taken an aggressive stance against Israel, with Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit calling Israel an 'enemy' state." - (Egypt warns of Israel-Lebanon escalation)

In June 2010, Egypt re-opened the Rafah border with Gaza (Rafah crossing to remain open indefinitely - News)

In August 2010, Egyptian security forces seized a ship loaded with explosives coming from Israel and arrested its owner in Port Said. (Egypt seizes explosives on ship coming from Israel - People's.)

In November 2010: Israel tells its citizens to leave Egypt. (Israel tells its citizens to leave Egypt.)

On 20 December 2010 (ISRAEL DESTABILISING EGYPT) we learnt that Egypt arrested members of an Israeli spy ring within its borders.

On 1 January 2011, we read that a group calling itself Al-Qaeda (the CIA-Mossad) may be responsible for the seven dead and 24 injured in an attack on a church in Egypt

In January 2011, we read that Egypt's Irrigation Minister has dismissed the possibility that Egypt would supply Israel with water from the Nile. (Egypt and Israel, a souring relationship?)

In January 2011: Mubarak warned Israel against a new Gaza war Israel News.Net)

~~

MOSCOW AIRPORT ATTACK

Vitaly Razdobudko



In January 2011, a bomb went off at Moscow's Domodedovo airport.



A man born as a Christian, Vitaly Razdobudko, is allegedly one of the 'bombers'.



Razdobudko reportedly converted to Islam.



Russia has around 23 million Muslims; this is the largest Muslim population in Europe.



Razdobudko was 'converted' by a Russian named Anton Stepanenko.



In 2006, Stepanenko was convicted of holding a man hostage.



In Stepanenko's home, police found Wahhabist literature and a manual on explosives.



Stepanenko recruits and brainwashes people for the Saudis, or Mossad or elements of the Russian FSB?



According to state-run Novosti, Razdobudko was not the man seen at Domodedovo.



A video camera "clearly shows that it is a different person," a police source told the agency. (Red Terror File. )



When Moskovsky Komsomolets surveyed its readers about the Domodedovo airport 'terrorist' attack in Moscow, 41% of Muscovites responded that the attack was most likely organized by past or present members of Russia's siloviki (security services)



Jewish folks have been influential in the Russian and other security services. (aangirfan: DO JEWS RUN THE SECURITY SERVICES?)



In the case of the Domodedovo attack, a security firm linked to Israel (ICTS) was running the "security" at the airport. (See here)



There could be a link to Russia's recognition of Palestine? (Penny for your thoughts: Suspect in Moscow Airport bombing ... )



And a link to the continued inprisonment of Khodorovsky?



Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries were among the first responders to the bombing.



No Jews were among the dead. (Chabad at Bombed Moscow Airport.)



According to Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov (No Sun Without Medvedev ):



"Over the last 11 years in Russia, the number of terrorist attacks has risen dramatically.



"From 2000 to 2009, they have increased more than sixfold and reached the astronomical figure of more than 750 incidents a year."

The Murder of the Romanovs

The decision to murder the Russian royal family reveals much about the inner workings of the Bolshevik Party at the time. The official story given out was that the task had been delegated to the Ural Soviet, though the murder of the Tsaritsa Alexandra and the five children was kept secret for over a year after the event.

It is still not been proved conclusively just how the decision to kill the family was arrived at; if it was central, or if it was local; and, if central, who exactly was involved. However, I can offer you a reasonable amount of circumstantial evidence that points quite firmly at Moscow.

For the Ural Soviet the presence of the royal family at Yekaterinburg was a growing concern, especially as the Czech Legion and other White forces approaching the town from the east. Rather than risk moving them they decided on execution, though they were unwilling to act without the approval the Council of Commissars in Moscow. Ivan Goloschekin, a member of the Ural Soviet who also happened to be a friend of Yakov Sverdlov, a close political associate of Lenin, was sent to Moscow to take soundings on the matter. He was told by Sverdlov that the government was still considering putting Nicholas on trial, an idea favoured by Trotsky. However, the steady advance of the Whites towards Yekaterinburg changed this, and Goloschekin was able to return with the news that Moscow had delegated the whole business to the Ural Soviet.

With Lenin's permission Sverdlov formally announced the death of Nicholas at a meeting of the Executive Council on 18 July 1918. Nothing was said of the fate of the Empress Alexandra and the five children, though an official statement was issued that they had all been moved. However, both Lenin and Sverdlov knew that they were all dead. They had been so advised by telegram from Yekaterinburg. The statement was a lie.

A year passed before the government admitted that they had all been shot, though the Social Revolutionaries were blamed. However, the real link between Moscow and the Urals was later made clear in a conversation between Sverdlov and Trotsky. Trotsky reports this in his memoirs thus;

"My next visit to Moscow took place after the fall of Yekaterinburg. Talking to Sverdlov, I asked in passing: 'Oh, yes, and where is the Tsar?
'It's all over,' he answered. 'He has been shot.'
'And where is the family?'
'And the family along with him.'
'All of them?', I asked, apparently with a touch of surprise.
'All of them,' replied Sverdlov. 'What about it?' He was waiting to see my reaction, I made no reply.
'And who made the decision?', I asked.
'We decided it here. Ilych [Lenin] believed that we shouldn't leave the Whites a live banner to rally round, especially under the present difficult circumstances.'
I did not ask any further questions and considered the matter closed. Actually, the decision was not only expedient but necessary. The severity of the summary justice showed the world that we would continue to fight mercilessly, stopping at nothing. The execution of the Tsar's family was needed not only in order to frighten, horrify, and dishearten the enemy, but also in order to shake up our own ranks to show that there was no turning back, that ahead lay only complete victory or complete ruin...This Lenin sensed well."

Sverdlov was certainly implicated in the murder of the entire family. It is difficult to accept that he would not have cleared this with Lenin, who, in my estimation, is guilty by association. He certainly deserves part of the 'credit' for this atrocity.

Since I wrote this I now have sufficient leads to conclude that there was something else at work, an indication that the Tsar and his family were early victims of the forms of struggle that were to become commonplace among the Bolsheviks in years to come. Although approved by the Central Committee the projected trial of the Tsar was very much Trotsky's favoured project, one where he would have appeared as prosecutor-in-chief. It would have added greatly to his prestige, and Sverdlov knew this. You see, the ideological struggles of the pre-Revolution days were about to give way to struggles over power. Sverdlov understood this in the way that Trotsky did not; and it was Sverdlov-in collaboration with the Ural Soviet-who did his best to undermine the projected trial.

Take a look again at the exchange reported by Trotsky in his Memoirs-it shows his surprise and Sverdlov's gleeful defiance. It's almost as if he is inviting Trotsky to object, which clearly he could not do. He had been outmaneuvered, decisively so, and his subsequent gloss was little more than a feeble attempt to make the best of the situation. In this, Sverdlov, the administrator, represented the Party, the old Bolshevik core, against the mercurial Trotsky, the former Menshevik. Sverdlov died in 1919, but the challenge to Trotsky was soon to be taken up by an even more formidable opponent.

Anastasia Romanova

I’ve long had a fascination with Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov for obvious reasons. It began when mother and father took me when I was about eleven years old to see Anastasia, the Disney movie, saying it was about me!

The real Anastasia was born on the 18 June 1901 in the Gregorian Calendar, the youngest of the four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, the Tsaritsa Alexandra. She had three older sisters: Olga, Tatiana and Maria. In time the four Grand Duchesses were to refer to themselves collectively as OTMA from the initial letters of their first names. Anastasia was to remain the youngest child until the birth of her brother, Alexi, in August 1904.

She was known by various names within the family, including Nastaya or Nastas but my favourite has to be Shvibzak, her nickname, the Russian word for ‘Imp’. Anastasia grew up to be a true Imp: lively, intelligent and vivacious, with a caustic wit, which often got her into trouble. Gleb Botkin, the son of the Romanov court physician, later wrote of her,

She undoubtedly held the record for punishable deeds in her family, for in naughtiness she was a true genius.

Less generously her distant cousin, Princess Georgievna, said that she was nasty to the point of being evil. But for all that she was, like her sisters, devoted to her brother, who suffered from hemophilia.

When her father was forced to abdicate in March 1917 Anastasia and the rest of the family went into captivity, less and less comfortable over time. While at Tobolsk she wrote an essay on Evelyn Hope, the poem by Robert Browning, which included the following melancholy passage in uncertain English;

When she died she was only sixteen years old. There was a man who loved her without having seen her but knew her very well. And she heard of him also. He never could tell her that he loved her, and now she was dead. But still he thought that when he and she will live their next life whenever it will be…

Anastasia herself was murdered by the Communists along with the rest of her family in July 1918, aged only seventeen. In 2000 the beautiful little princess, who was never to know love, was canonised with the rest of her family by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Managed Democracy: Understanding Putin and Understanding Russia

There is a very interesting piece in the recent issue of History Today (London, March 2009) by Daniel Beer called Russia’s Managed Democracy.

The important point is that what might be called the ‘Putin System’ offers a secure alternative to the undercurrents of centrifugalism and anarchy that have been such a feature of Russian history at moments of crisis. Yes, the Russians have perhaps sacrificed certain rights that we in the west tend to see as an essential part of a democratic culture. But for most Russians order and security are far higher priorities than human rights. Indeed, the free for all of the Yeltsin years, the economic and social chaos of the early nineteen-nineties, caused such reaction that people began to refer to democracy as dermo, the Russian word for shit. Vladimir Putin, if you like, came like a new Michael Romanov, a successor to a second Tsar Boris and the Time of Troubles.

So, are Putin and his KGB coterie simply a return to the forms of rule prevailing under the Communists? Well, only in part. The most successful aspect of his appeal to the people is to convince then that Russia’s authoritarian traditions are just as valid in moral terms as those of the west. And he is not necessarily drawing on the traditions of Lenin and the Tsars; for Russian Liberalism well before the Revolution of 1917 was undergoing a steady reappraisal of what was politically possible in Russia, a country without a tradition of the rule of law, a country where the events of 1905 had introduced widespread and continuous violence, and not necessarily revolutionary violence; just violence. Writing in 1905, Count Sergei Vitte, expressed the view that ‘All Russia is a madhouse.’ It was to remain a madhouse for years after.

So, in the pre-war Dumas the Russian liberals were already moving in an authoritarian direction, a process continued by the Provisional Government of 1917 after some initial revolutionary enthusiasm. Russian Liberalism was therefore established on a new basis, drawing on three elements: nationalism, the need for a strong state, and a readiness to ‘manage’ the democratic wishes of the population at large when these were perceived to be in conflict with the interests of the state. The Yeltsin years demonstrated the dangers of losing sight of these guiding principles; years where the government took advice from Harvard-based free marketers who were in the deepest ignorance about Russian history, politics and culture.

Putin, the author concludes, is not the gravedigger of Russian liberalism but the inheritor of its first experiment. It’s as well to remember this, as well to understand Russia, as well to understand that Vladimir Putin is best cultivated as an ally and as a friend. As with Iraq, western policy towards Russia has been atrociously ill-judged. I personally have no problems whatsoever with the whole concept of managed democracy.