Surviving Capitalism (Not) : What if Putin is Telling the Truth?

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, May 15, 2015

What if Putin is Telling the Truth?

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook.

Putin stated bluntly that in his view the West would only be content in having a Russia weak, suffering and begging from the West, something clearly the Russian character is not disposed to. Then a short way into his remarks, the Russian President stated for the first time publicly something that Russian intelligence has known for almost two decades but kept silent until now, most probably in hopes of an era of better normalized Russia-US relations.

Putin stated that the terror in Chechnya and in the Russian Caucasus in the early 1990’s was actively backed by the CIA and western Intelligence services to deliberately weaken Russia. He noted that the Russian FSB foreign intelligence had documentation of the US covert role without giving details.

Although Engdahl really doesn't answer the question posed by the title, he reports on Putin's recent charge that the CIA was behind the terror in Chechnya and in the Russian Caucasus in the early 1990’s. As the head of the Russian intelligence agency until August of 1991, Putin was very well informed of events in the Caucasus region. While he on this occasion did not provide the details, Engdahl draws on his own research written up in his 2014 book Amerikas’ Heiliger Krieg to provide us with some revealing details of the episode in extracts (in English) that support Putin's charge.