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Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Dangerous Russia
Christopher Ruddy
Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003
The major news this month may not be that Saddam Hussein was captured, but that a silent coup has taken place in Russia – all but confirming a new dictatorship there.
Since 9/11 America has been focused on international terror and the likes of Saddam, bin Laden and others.
Watching those targets should not mean we dismiss other worldwide developments that may pose an even greater danger.
While I realize it flies in the face of conventional wisdom, I believe that Russia today remains America's No. 1 danger.
Why?
For two reasons.
First, the old communist KGB elite have confirmed their ongoing coup in parliamentary elections this month.
Second, Russia remains the only country in the world that can destroy the United States in 30 minutes.
Leading Russia today is its president, Vladimir Putin. Putin is a former KGB official who makes no bones about his desire to bring Russia back to the good old Soviet days.
This month, Putin's party won control of the Duma.
Columnist William Safire detailed what happened: "By taking over the mass media and seizing the political opposition's source of funds, Vladimir Putin and KGB cohort have brought back one-party rule to Russia."
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, it appeared that Russia was on the path to democracy. Old ways are hard to die, however.
Even before the Russian Duma election, Newsweek recently offered a special report on Russia, one that received little media notice but has grave implications for the West.
Newsweek revealed that Putin has systematically filled positions in the Russian government with dreaded KGB henchmen from the Soviet Union police state.
The magazine said that the Russian bureaucracy teems with members of the siloviki – former officers of the Soviet secret police.
Typical of the breed is Vladimir Kulakov, identified by Newsweek as a former midlevel KGB officer who today is the elected leader of the 2.4 million residents of Russia's southern Voronezh region.
"At every level of government former secret police agents are grabbing power, digging in and recruiting old KGB friends. More and more they are stepping in to 'manage' Russia's fledgling democracy."
Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a top Russian sociologist, tracks the activities of the old KGB men.
She told Newsweek that rumors of what she called a "creeping KGB coup" are borne out by the facts.
At the top of the KGB pyramid is Putin, who has surrounded himself with former companions from the Committee for State Security (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Besopastnosti).
Kryshtanovskaya cited deputy chiefs of administration Igor Sechin and Viktor Ivanov as two top former KGB officers.
The magazine notes that half the members of what she calls Putin's de facto Politburo are siloviki or members of the military or the FSB, the new name for the KGB.
When Putin divided Russia into seven districts, each run by a bureaucracy of about 1,500 bureaucrats, he named members of the siloviki to head five of them. Said Kryshtanovskaya, the siloviki now account for fully 70 percent of all senior regional officials.
Moreover, outside the Russian government tens of thousands of ex-KGB officers now work for private security companies, which function as "sleeper cells" primed to spring to life at a critical moment.
Says Kryshtanovskaya: "In the past we had a socialist totalitarian state. Now we have a capitalist totalitarian state."
However one describes this monster that has developed in Russia, it remains a danger.
Take ex-KGB official Sergei Ivanov, who recently warned that Russia would re-examine the defensive nature of its nuclear strategy and spoke ominously about taking pre-emptive nuclear strikes against unspecified international targets.
Clearly the madmen who made up the Old Soviet Union are back in the driver's seat.
They also control the world's greatest nuclear arsenal.
Though Russia's conventional army has weakened since the collapse of the Soviet Union, its nuclear forces have remained robust and may have even grown.
During the same time, America has been dismantling its nuclear deterrent at an alarming rate. In the past 10 years alone, the U.S. scrapped nearly its entire inventory of tactical nuclear weapons.
So, yes, capturing Saddam is a major victory in the war on terror. Still, we must remain vigilant to other potential threats to our security.
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Dangerous Russia
Christopher Ruddy
Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003
The major news this month may not be that Saddam Hussein was captured, but that a silent coup has taken place in Russia – all but confirming a new dictatorship there.
Since 9/11 America has been focused on international terror and the likes of Saddam, bin Laden and others.
Watching those targets should not mean we dismiss other worldwide developments that may pose an even greater danger.
While I realize it flies in the face of conventional wisdom, I believe that Russia today remains America's No. 1 danger.
Why?
For two reasons.
First, the old communist KGB elite have confirmed their ongoing coup in parliamentary elections this month.
Second, Russia remains the only country in the world that can destroy the United States in 30 minutes.
Leading Russia today is its president, Vladimir Putin. Putin is a former KGB official who makes no bones about his desire to bring Russia back to the good old Soviet days.
This month, Putin's party won control of the Duma.
Columnist William Safire detailed what happened: "By taking over the mass media and seizing the political opposition's source of funds, Vladimir Putin and KGB cohort have brought back one-party rule to Russia."
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, it appeared that Russia was on the path to democracy. Old ways are hard to die, however.
Even before the Russian Duma election, Newsweek recently offered a special report on Russia, one that received little media notice but has grave implications for the West.
Newsweek revealed that Putin has systematically filled positions in the Russian government with dreaded KGB henchmen from the Soviet Union police state.
The magazine said that the Russian bureaucracy teems with members of the siloviki – former officers of the Soviet secret police.
Typical of the breed is Vladimir Kulakov, identified by Newsweek as a former midlevel KGB officer who today is the elected leader of the 2.4 million residents of Russia's southern Voronezh region.
"At every level of government former secret police agents are grabbing power, digging in and recruiting old KGB friends. More and more they are stepping in to 'manage' Russia's fledgling democracy."
Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a top Russian sociologist, tracks the activities of the old KGB men.
She told Newsweek that rumors of what she called a "creeping KGB coup" are borne out by the facts.
At the top of the KGB pyramid is Putin, who has surrounded himself with former companions from the Committee for State Security (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Besopastnosti).
Kryshtanovskaya cited deputy chiefs of administration Igor Sechin and Viktor Ivanov as two top former KGB officers.
The magazine notes that half the members of what she calls Putin's de facto Politburo are siloviki or members of the military or the FSB, the new name for the KGB.
When Putin divided Russia into seven districts, each run by a bureaucracy of about 1,500 bureaucrats, he named members of the siloviki to head five of them. Said Kryshtanovskaya, the siloviki now account for fully 70 percent of all senior regional officials.
Moreover, outside the Russian government tens of thousands of ex-KGB officers now work for private security companies, which function as "sleeper cells" primed to spring to life at a critical moment.
Says Kryshtanovskaya: "In the past we had a socialist totalitarian state. Now we have a capitalist totalitarian state."
However one describes this monster that has developed in Russia, it remains a danger.
Take ex-KGB official Sergei Ivanov, who recently warned that Russia would re-examine the defensive nature of its nuclear strategy and spoke ominously about taking pre-emptive nuclear strikes against unspecified international targets.
Clearly the madmen who made up the Old Soviet Union are back in the driver's seat.
They also control the world's greatest nuclear arsenal.
Though Russia's conventional army has weakened since the collapse of the Soviet Union, its nuclear forces have remained robust and may have even grown.
During the same time, America has been dismantling its nuclear deterrent at an alarming rate. In the past 10 years alone, the U.S. scrapped nearly its entire inventory of tactical nuclear weapons.
So, yes, capturing Saddam is a major victory in the war on terror. Still, we must remain vigilant to other potential threats to our security.
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