New in PJ Media:
Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, the Western intelligentsia has been busy portraying Vladimir Putin as a man who, unlike, say Lyin’ Joe Biden or Rachel Levine or your local drag queen, has transgressed all the bounds of decency. He’s an authoritarian. He’s an imperialist. He’s an autocrat. He’s a new Hitler.
But while the media and numerous government officials have not hesitated to portray Putin as evil incarnate, one would be hard-pressed to find anyone claiming that he is stupid. Few people, if anyone, doubt that he is as shrewd as he is ruthless, as thoughtful as he is menacing. Putin himself, however, has just put a massive dent in his fearsome reputation with his response to the ISIS attack in Russia.
When the Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for Friday’s jihad terror attack in Moscow, in which the death toll is currently 139, its claim met with widespread skepticism. ISIS issued a statement boasting that “the Islamic State dealt a strong blow to Russia with a bloody attack, the most violent targeting it in years.” It added that “security sources told Amaq Agency that a coordinated attack was launched by Islamic State fighters, on Friday, on a large crowd of Christians in the city of Krasnogorsk on the outskirts of the capital, Moscow.” Amaq Agency is ISIS’ mouthpiece for its announcements of various jihad activities.
Despite this, however, the usual suspects of conspiracy paranoia, notably the CIA and Mossad, were accused on social media of being the real culprits. And Putin himself, in his initial statement on the attack, blamed the massacre on “international terrorism” but didn’t mention ISIS and suggested that Ukraine had something to do with it: “They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.”
On Monday, however, Putin issued another statement, in which he acknowledged the truth he had skirted previously: “We know that the crime was committed by radical Islamists, whose ideology the Islamic world itself has been fighting for centuries.” Really, Vlad? Where?
As “The History of Jihad” demonstrates, one constant amid 1,400 years of jihad warfare around the world was that there was never any pushback from within the Islamic world. In all the centuries of jihad warfare and bloody jihad conquest, there was never an Islamic group dedicated to fighting against “radical Islamists” and showing that Islam is a religion of peace. There were never even any protests until a handful of Muslims began standing against jihad terrorism in the modern West.
There is more. Read the rest here.
WPM says
His country is facing population collapse ,the only group that is reproducing at a replacement rate I would guess are Moslems in the stan groups of the former Soviet Union .He needs these men for the battle field for his war in the Ukraine ,and a possible world war 3.He must pander to these groups for his needed manpower in war. Why the way the one government elitist in America and Europe are importing violent Jihadist is because they hate the common people there ,want them dead gone ,they want a de-populated the world they are idiots who think they will be left untouched if major forces go to war. We live in dark times as the elite worship power ,money ,and the green mother earth god and think they will be safe in their bolt-holes when the shit hits the fan. The leaders of China, Russian are violent, toleration, willing to kill millions of their own people to hold onto power ,but in the end maybe preserve their cultural and countries .Every major leader in the West in America ,England France, Canada ,Australia ,New Zealand ,most of Northern Europe ,does not seem to care about keeping its native population safe .They lack any pride in their cultural or their people. They do not care about the needs or wants of their people .We live in pagan worshiping leaders idiots who think they could survive without the common men and women of their counties.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Only thing – the -stans, which used to be reliable allies of Moscow, now have a competing source of influence: Ankara. During the Soviet regime, the Soviets did whatever they could to squelch faith (which worked), but gave the Turkistanis an alternative: their ethnic pride. As a result, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the -stans – including shi’a Azerbaijan but excluding sunni Tajikistan – allied w/ Turkey (although Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan took their time doing it, since their leaders were autocrats. While Uzbekistan did what it could to supress islamic expression everywhere, Turkmenistan tried doing what Ataturk did to Turkey in the 1920s: replace the cult of Muhammad w/ that of his own)
As a result, Kazakhstan has been Turkifying its northern parts, which were mainly Russian (like Crimea and Donbas, the Kazakh Steppes were never Kazakh, they were Russian!) Somehow, they’ve managed to evade the attention of Putin that Georgia or Ukraine couldn’t, b’cos instead of aligning w/ the West, they’ve aligned w/ Turkey in the Organization of Turkic States (formerly the Turkic Council), and Turkey is a frenemy of Russia. So it’s not like Russia will have a population to dip into due to its own imploding population
The other thing about Russia is that despite the end of Communism, it’s a country like Latin American countries – corporatist, but not capitalist. They have a bunch of oligarchs, which by itself wouldn’t be so much of a problem. The problem is that all of them are Moscow centric, so 13 million of Russia’s 147 million people live in that city alone, and those who don’t and who have any ambitions try to migrate there. End result is that Russia’s heartland, as well as Siberia and their Far East (Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Magadan, Yakutsk, Irkutsk,….) is totally empty and ignored. If any Russian leader could figure out how to get his country’s population growing again, and spread them out of Moscow throughout the nation from Bryansk to the Bering Straits, they could figure out how to prosper again
Reziac says
“End result is that Russia’s heartland, as well as Siberia and their Far East…) is totally empty and ignored.”
This is not quite true. Anyone who wants to live in those godforsaken places is encouraged to do so. The state offers subsidies and tax breaks for development work in Siberia. (A while back I saw where if you want to immigrate to Russia and commit to working in eastern Siberia, the state will pay your way.) But outside of the few cities it’s a hard place and few people live and work there by choice.
Putin very much sees the benefit of these backbeyond areas having local development, in fact recently instituted a new award for local service. There are also perks for larger families (another need that is well understood). But unless you want to reconstitute the gulags, it’s unlikely there’ll be any mass move to develop those distant places, as far from civilization as New York is from Los Angeles.
Russia is about 15% Muslim (mostly along the ‘stans), and the reason they get along as well as they do (and this was not the only such Islamic terrorist attack) is because the social expectation and enforcement is that you will be Russian first, whatever ethnicity second. And Putin has learned the hard way that Muslims only respect force, and he is willing to do whatever is necessary to keep them on a short leash.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I have been watching YouTube videos of a Russian girl who lived in Khabarovsk – originally from Spassk-Dalmy, and she mentioned that any local development there, the profits all go to oligarchs based in Moscow. Which is why anybody w/ any ambition wants to get out of there
One of the videos showed how Vladivostok is a very cosmopolitan city w/ not just Russian, but also Japanese, Korean (both North & South) and Chinese culture available there. So assuming the sanctions didn’t exist, Russia could have gotten a lot from Japan and both the Koreas
On the muslim issue, Russia has a few muslim oblasts – Tatarstan, Chechnya, Ingushetya, Dagestan, Bashkiristan, which are culturally very similar to the -stans. And you’re right – Russia knows how to put them on a leash
Mind watch says
Yes I agree totally with the previous comment. It’s as though the ‘world-weary’ West has become desentized to atrocities and / or resigned to them. This article has made it even clearer to me that Extremist Islam is an offender based on a myth, rather than a defender of something actual, universal and virtuous (to state the obvious!) How this loathsome, ultimately depraved human character trait, hand in hand with delusion, persists over the centuries is mystery, for me at least. It’s interesting that the article suggests that they themselves are the vermin that they are trying to stamp out – of course, this is never recognised for what it is.
Putin comes across as a ‘selfless’ character that can’t be pinned down nature-wise. I’m beginning to wonder whether or not he is aware of an actual ‘him’ inside himself. I just read (Reuters) that Putin was discussing ‘security cooperation’ with Mali’s Junta leader Assimi Goita – “We agreed to cooperate further in the fight against terrorism”. I mean, wasn’t Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a form of terrorism?
In any case, WPM’s comment sums it up well. For me, the world does seem to be in a downward spiral. Huge over-population may be a factor, and everybody knowing everything about anyone else through the internet!
WPM says
It is not “overpopulation” it is collapsing population in first world nations and the elite trying to replace the first world people with Moslems who do not want first world laws ,morals , belief in the golden rule ,made in the image of God , and culture .Replace it with people who hate western law cultural , who believe in a total slave master mentality ,people and cultural are not all equal. ,People’s belief systems effects their behavior and interaction with others .Islam and sharia law will not co-exits with others .Their code is to either kill or enslave or convert for the last 1400 years. You cannot replace native populations of North- South America ,Europe and much the the rest of the first world with Moslems and expect society to carry on in those countries like it has for the last 300 years without these countries devolving back into a waring
tribe clan society. They will set modern society back 1100 years to serfs and noble men (the ruling elite) maybe that is the plan.
James Lincoln says
WPM,
Western nations already have “native population” fertility rates significantly below the replacement rate of 2.1.
Many do not want to subject their own children to the effects of population replacement.
It’s a vicious cycle.
Wellington says
Dictators (and Putin is a dictator) tend to survive (to the extent they do) chiefly not because they are super smart but because they are super ruthless. Examples are plentiful to prove this—Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini (he did last some twenty years after all), Saddam Hussein (like Mussolini he lasted for over two decades)—and Putin. The two dictators that come foremost to mind who actually were super smart were Franco and Salazar, each lasting about forty years.
Well, in any case, I don’t want any dictators anywhere because they are a gigantic menace to something highly worthwhile—liberty. And only Western Civilization pioneered true liberty and liberty right now is in grave peril in traditionally free Western nations like America, Canada and the UK. Not looking good—and, damn, we meanwhile have turds like Putin messing humanity up all the more.
Man rarely learns. Ain’t learning now.
John Smith says
“Dictators tend to survive not because they are super smart but because they are super ruthless.” I’ll go along with that Wellington as Putin is super ruthless, but unfortunately he also happens to be a helluva lot smarter than that demented crook that you now have in the white house.
Wellington says
Agreed, John Smith. Joe Biden is indeed a demented crook and even worse. He is a traitor.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I hear you, but liberty ain’t a solution for everybody, as President Bush found out. He thought he’d unleash liberty on the Afghans and Iraqis, and it turned out to be disastrous. Natan Sharansky had that theory, which worked well in Latin America: Argentina post Galtieri didn’t want to threaten the Falklands any time domestic unrest happened, b’cos it saw what it did to Galtieri. But as Ali Sina once said, it was never gonna work in any muslim country for one simple reason: islam
The best example of what I am talking about can be seen in Uzbekistan. During the rule of both the Romanovs and the Soviets, that country was totally contained and prevented from even being devoutly islamic, let alone exporting jihad (the way it used to during the Khwarezmids and Timurides). Then after that country became independent, its Soviet era leader, ironically named Islam Karimov, remained its president until death. He made it a point to crack down on any expression of islamic fervor, right down to having beards. Result was that to this day, Uzbekistan is a relatively safe country for foreigners to visit, and all that’s left of its muslim heritage in Buqhara and Samarqand are museum exhibits
Incidentally, after 9/11, Uzbekistan was one of the countries that supported us and gave us the use of 2 air force bases in their country. Our genius State Department and the USCIRF – the bureaucracy that weighs in on religious freedom everywhere else in the world – issued a criticism of the Karimov regime after a crackdown on Jihadists in the Fergana valley. That pissed off the regime, and Tashkent closed down those bases
So liberty, wonderful as it is, is not the right solution for everybody. Particularly those cultures that have an underlying ideology that would happily squelch it
Wellington says
I agree, Infidel. Liberty is not for everyone. In fact, I think it is not for most of humanity. Too bad because the greatest nations have been the freest nations though freedom is fragile as is civilization overall.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I don’t think he’s clueless. He’s calculating: he thinks that he can buy off subsets of the ummah and have them loyal to him. After several years of war w/ Chechnya, he ultimately settled it by buying them off. He’s also wooed other islamic leaders in his country – mainly Tatar, Chechen, Bashkir,…. so that they’d sign off on his war w/ Ukraine. Also picked Iran’s faction in the ultimate war for the control of the ummah. The last I think happened b’cos Alawite Syria was already his ally
I don’t think Putin himself will face any repercussions, but his successors will. Just like Brezhnev didn’t have to face the ultimate consequences of the Soviet-Afghan war, but Gorbachev did. I do hope that a future leader that Russia has will be more like Victor Orban: nationalistic, liberty minded, puts his national interests first, fixes relations w/ Israel and stops feeding any faction of the ummah, but also resists Western attempts at globalization, given the disaster it has been for everybody
Reziac says
There were actually two conflicts with the Chechens, but we only hear about the second. The first time they decided to go medieval on their neighbors, Putin shooed them home as gently as he could. The second time, Putin realized being nice wasn’t going to work, and instead demonstrated that he was willing to out-ruthless them (by killing their women and children). Suddenly the Chechens understood that their local jihads would not be tolerated, and that they would be Russians first and Muslims second OR ELSE, and Putin finds it a good bargain to pay their present leader to keep this peace.