Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within

The point both Yuri & Alexander make in there fine investigative journalism, is that Putin had deliberately destroyed the intial shoots of self-government in Russia & he now exercises a transparent form of arbitrary rule known as "bespredel", without limits. This book tells of how Russia's promise of self-government was lost. It is a cautionary tale for all governments and their people; for not only do all goverments lie, they all have secret services, and it was the secret services of Russia, by a masterstroke of brilliance/matched only by brute force, that Putin was crowned President by ends/through ANY means necessary. I read this primarily to discover Russia's sercret service's modus operandi in its operations to this end and to discern any simularties that the U.S. secret services are using. Where they were alike and where they were different. As everything is secret...your sometimes left with the tip of an iceberg or an event horizon. In "Blowing Up Russia" Yuri's event horizon was the terrorist apartment bombings, their "9/11". As he got deeper into it he found an inside job done by the FSB, Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. He teamed up with Alexander, who was murdered by Putin, to literally bury his information. Yuri finially managed to publish this information (this book, of course was immediately banned in Russia). Yuri proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was an inside job, and goes much deeper. How deep? Peter Dale Scott coined the political, "Deep State", where a shadow government actually is pulling the essential strings of policy that REALLY matter in government. This is the territory that Yuri & Alexander uncover in this book. One can draw simularities with our 9/11 to Russia's apartments bombing/all the way to an insde job. Also striking, is the criminal infiltration of the secret services, to where there is no question of its criminal DNA/right down to the very bones of the services existence. It's in your face criminality, not unlike our U.S. banksters of today. A very informative, cautionary tale, from which numerous conclusions could be made by many readers. A wide audience is deserved. Both Jefferson and Madison agreed fervantly on two principles: An educated public was necessary for the survival of the country AND that the powers of government belong ultimately to the people who are governed. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !!!!! P.S. Max Weber memorably remarked that the decisive means for politics is violence. He also added, that the world is governed by demons, and he who lets himself in for...power and force as a means, contracts with diabolical powers, and for his actions it is NOT true that good can follow from only good and evil from only evil, but that the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this, is, indeed, a political infant.

I simply read the first chapter which was more than enough! The old KGB simply has played a shell game of reorganization. The game of power and terror is still the same, just the labels and some of the terminology has changed. The recent events in Georgia is a case example of what Aleksandr has warned about. Putin is a cold and calculating operative, and he wanted the Georgians to attack South Ossentia. Now there is another terrorist bogey to scare the Russian people, the Georgians! The Russian military responded quite heavily with an invasion. The Georgians, as well as the Ukranians, Poles, and others, and the West are being told: DON'T MESS WITH PUTIN!

This book is not about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. But it is the book that got him murdered. If you imagine Russia as a nation on the mend from its communist sickness, think again. The former KGB and FSB operative (Litvienko) and his academic friend (Felshtinsky) published their book in Russia and it enraged Don Vito Putin. Putin, you'll recall, was the man about whom George W. Bush said: "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy . . . I was able to get a sense of his soul." As Litvenko lay dying he wrote the following to Putin: "You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. "You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value." So much for President Bush's soul sense.

Alexander Litvinenko is a 20-year veteran of the Russian military, achieving the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and serving in the KGB Department for the Analysis of Criminal Organizations, only to be arrested for disclosing a number of illegal orders he'd received and imprisoned. He escaped from Russia and received political asylum in Britain in May 2001. Yuri Felshtinsky studied history at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute and immigrated to America in 1978 where he obtained a doctorate in history from Rutgers. Felshtinsky is a recognized expert on Soviet Affairs and the other of several books on Russian history and politics. In Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within, Litvinenko and Felshtinsky collaborate to reveal a scathing accusation of the Russian special services, holding them responsible for acts of terror, kidnappings, contract killings, and efforts to steer Russia back to being a dictatorship. Blowing Up Russia also strenuously denounces the war in Chechnya for its deleterious toll on human life and freedom. A sobering, persuasively charged account, Blowing Up Russia is an essential text for Soviet Studies academic reference collections, and should be mandatory reading for anyone having political, cultural, or economic dealings with present-day Russia.