Our Progressive Putins and The Prescience of Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko was a hero in the mold of Mosab Hassan Yossef, the so-called “Son of Hamas,” who the US is sickeningly threatening to deport. In fact, their fates may be quite similar if this is to happen, as in 2006 Litvinenko as you may recall was poisoned with Polonium-210, an extremely rare radioactive substance, and essential ingredient to early nuclear bombs.

Why was he poisoned? Litvinenko, a former KGB/FSB agent who left the service and defected to London was a staunch critic of the Putin regime, and apparently knew too much for the Kremlin to bare. For Litvinenko implicated the Russian government in a variety of terrorist attacks, abroad for example through their training of Al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri in 1998, and disgustingly at home through an attempted bombing of an apartment complex in 1999, and the infamous 2002 Moscow theater and 2004 Beslan school attacks.

I recently read his book Allegations, which in light of recent events is proving quite prescient.

One argument he makes that should resonate with all of us regards political resistance to the criminal Russian government:

There is no need to break any law, even most cruel one, in order to remain humans and citizens. All we need to do is to take a civic stance, to demand that the authorities strictly obey the constitution. Putin and his propaganda team know this, so they try to divide us, to set us against each other. In doing so, the Kremlin strategists appeal to the lowest instincts, using every ethnic, religious or property differences we may have. That is exactly why we must understand that our common enemy now is Putin’s regime (Allegations, 100).

Is this not precisely what we are witnessing today? Our citizens are peacefully demanding a return to the Constitution, while our Progressive Putins try to spark racial and class warfare to divide and conquer us.

Much like the great Russian novelists who observe and depict the human soul with unparalleled clarity, too Litvinenko has great insight with regard to the souls of our pols. Speaking of the lack of a will in the West to defend Eastern European states from Russian provocations, he argues in the case of Lithuania that:

It would be very naive to expect the West to protect you. You should count on your own forces rather than anything else. Western politicians are pragmatics, and are not prepared to fight for the freedom of Lithuania against Russia, with its nuclear and bacteriological arsenals. Unfortunately, the major Western leaders seem to have forgotten world history. They live from an election to an election and do not even try to see further than the next four years. They try to play with Putin like they played with his Nazi predecessors on 1930s’ Germany. They sacrifice the democratic principles for the short-term tactical interests. Indeed, they may get some tactical benefits, but they are losing strategically (168).

Could not we replace Lithuania with Israel? And have not our Western leaders forgotten history and sacrificed long-term survival for short-term victories in every political sphere? Are we not making serious strategic errors when it comes to the Iranians, the Chinese, the Russians and other rogue states and their terrorist allies? Are we not slowly but surely sacrificing Western civilization to Sharia? Are we not blinded in devising policy based on multiculturalism and specifically the belief that all peoples are the same and share the same goals and aspirations?

One of the more refreshingly pointed parts of Litvinenko’s work lies in his criticism of the UN. He argues (with my emphasis added):

First of all, we should remember that the UN is an outdated and wasteful organization, which only discredits the international law, values of humanity, and basic moral principles. It was created after the Second World War by Stalin and Roosevelt. The difference between the two founders’ political ideals was not so big: if Stalin was a Bolshevik, Roosevelt was a Menshevik. Mensheviks disagreed with Bolsheviks on some tactical issues, such as how money should be collected from party members, but their ultimate goals were the same: to take away our property, to share it ‘justly’, and to force all of us into one socialist prison camp.

The UN founders’ idea was that the organization would solve international conflicts and restrain the aggressive states such as Nazi Gemany. In reality, it could play such a role only for a few years, until the Cold War started. Ever since then, the USSR and then Russia [and we might insert any other enemy powers here] skillfully manipulated the UN, to use it only against the United States and the West in general – against precisely those countries which abide by international law.

If the Soviet Union and later Russia wanted to start a war, they would just do that, without asking UN permission. If the US or the UK wanted to much as to introduce sanctions against some fascist dictator, they had to spend years pleading for the UN to pass a resolution allowing that.

It has never happened in history that the UN effectively opposed a dictatorship or a dictator. The only exception was the 1949 Korean War, where the Western armies fought against communism under the UN flag, and that happened only by chance. The Soviets, still experienced in manipulating international organizations, made a tactical mistake – walked out of a meeting, — so an anti-communist resolution was passed. But ever since then, the UN always ignored human rights abuses in North Korea and Cuba, USSR and China and now Russia and Chechnya.

Being a predominantly US-financed organization, the UN however has become a cover for a great many of spies from Russia and other tyrannies and dictatorships. Whenever the Soviet regime or its Russian successors [or again, most any other hostile regimes] were in trouble, they simply manipulated the UN into passing or rejecting a respective resolution. So, they would get authoritative judgments saying that there was nothing wrong in their actions, while all their opponents were real war criminals (169-70).

Yet our President believes that our allies should be subject to show trials at the hands of this this morally bankrupt, hypocritical, illegitimate and dangerous institution. John Bolton, we need you now more than ever.

Meanwhile, today President Obama maintains a cozy relationship with Russia, as reflected in a recent White House press release on the upcoming June 22-24 meeting between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The statement reads:

Over the last eighteen months, the United States and Russia have made significant strides in resetting relations between our two countries in ways that advance our mutual interests. Since first meeting in London in April 2009, President Obama and President Medvedev have collaborated closely to enhance the security and well-being of the American and Russian people, including the expansion of the Northern Distribution Network, which supplies our troops in Afghanistan; the signing of the New START Treaty, which reduces our nuclear arsenals, enhances transparency about our strategic forces, and demonstrates U.S. and Russian leadership in support of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; new sanctions against North Korea, designed to compel North Korea to adhere to its international obligations; the full and active pursuit of the dual track strategy that seeks Iran’s compliance with its international obligations regarding its nuclear program, including most recently UN Security Council Resolution 1929; and the creation of a Bilateral President Commission, which has expanded dramatically the interactions among Americans and Russians on a whole range of issues, including emergency disaster response, space, counternarcotics, counterterrorism, energy efficiency, and trade and investment, among others.

Politico notes further:

In a separate statement marking Russia Day, President Obama stressed the two nation’s “strong partnership”:

“On behalf of the American people, I extend my best wishes to all those who observe Russia Day. On June 12, 1992, the first Congress of the Russian Federation declared a new sovereign nation. But the relationship between our peoples goes back much further. This year, we celebrated the 65th Anniversary of the end of World War II, and it was the joint Allied forces that defeated fascism. Today, our two nations continue in our strong partnership, mutual respect and friendship, and I am proud of the new START Treaty and our joint efforts to reduce our nuclear arsenals. Beyond that, our two nations continue to expand our commercial and economic ties. Here in America, many Americans can trace their origins to Russia, and all of them are an important part of our national identity.”

What would Litvinenko say of this newfound love based on “mutual respect and friendship,” with a Russia that is a cesspool of corruption, graft and violence run by former KGB leaders? Juxtapose the White House’s glowing statements with Alexander’s (again, my emphasis added):

Indeed, the greatest real threat to world civilization today is the Russian Mafia orchestrated by special services. Covertly, without drawing much attention, it spreads its tentacles all over the world.

Russian Mafia, along with its Western accomplices like former German Chancellor Schroeder, presents a real threat to Western democracy…Western police agencies, obsessed with the so-called war on terrorism, resort to collaborating with the Russian Mafia, represented by people like Putin, Patrushev, Ivanov and their likes. The problem is that it is natural for Mafia to corrupt the statehood, like the rust which eats metal away. If Western democracies collaborate with the KGB regime long enough, they are at risk of degrading to the level of backward and corrupt Russia. Western countries can simply lose their democratic statehoods to the Mafia, leaving their citizens defenceless in front of that mortal danger (204).

In an interview with the Chechen press, note as well the following exchange:

Chechenpress: What can you say about the terrorist attacks in London? Which forces have masterminded these attacks? From which part of the world are they?

Litvinenko: There is only one thing I know for certain. The centre of the world terrorism today is not in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or Chechen Republic. The terrorist threat which spreads all over the world originates from the Kremlin and Lubyanka offices. Terrorism will not end, more bombs will explode and more blood will shed, unless the Russian special services are dissolved, banned and condemned. There are no statutes of limitation for terrorism. We must pursue and prosecute all those involved in it as long as they are alive, not award them Nobel Peace Prizes and erect monuments to them. I must say it again: the leaders of Soviet and Russian special services, such as Yuri Andropov, Vladimir Putin and Nikolai Patrushev, were (and in some cases still are) behind all the terrorists I named. These people are the world’s chief terrorists, and their place is not among the leaders of civilized nations, but in the dock. Unless they are condemned like the Nazi Gestapo, there will be no end to the terrorism in the world (218).

For background, Litvinenko in Allegations refers not just to al-Zawahiri, but also Carlos the Jackal, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein and numerous others as trained KGB agents or at a minimum close allies, and many of these ties have been corroborated as information has seeped out of Russia over the years.

It is clear throughout his writings that Litvinenko had an axe to grind when it came to the Russian regime that commanded him to commit murder, an order that led him to resign. Nevertheless, even if we assume that he exaggerates and Russia is not a mortal threat to us, there still seems to be value beyond particular allegations.

Litvinenko provides another potential layer of evidence of the alliance between the leftists, in this case of the ruthless Eastern garden variety and the militant Muslim world. Also, based upon his scathing critique of the Putin government, even leaving aside the necessarily conspiratorial aspect to his arguments, Litvinenko gives us serious pause, in light of an Obama administration that nixes plans for defense shields, reduces nuclear stockpiles, deepens economic ties and palls around with Russian leaders; the Russians who in addition to allegedly sponsoring terrorism and shepherding in all sorts of criminality ally with the the likes of the Iranians, the Turks and the Venezuelans.

In closing, while Russia in particular may represent only one threat among many to the Western world today, Alexander Litvinenko’s warnings and wisdom appear valuable more generally. For their must have been more than a grain of truth in his words, given his horrific assassination.

Most importantly, his was a clarion call that we must stop the madness of our foreign policy in which our Progressive Putins ally themselves with the forces of evil and thumb their noses at the forces of good, lest we become the evil ourselves.