This is a superb snapshot of what is going on with Russia and what Russia is having to contend with the eastern and central regions of Russia. Islamic rebellion and resistance has a long and bloody history against Russia. Here in the West the focus is mostly on Chechnya, which is responsible for much of the muslim discontent and violence that Russia has to deal with.
This introduction to the excellent article below is by Confidential Reporter and offers excellent insight, observations and summations about Russia and a little known revolt (at least here in the West ) that was known as the Basmachi Revolt of 1916-1931.
I asked for and received permission from CR to re-post this here. Foreign Confidential is unsurpassed in the sources it uses and the predictions and news that FC breaks.
PatriotUSA
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Observations from Confidential Reporter:
It's hard not believe, given the secret US intervention in Afghanistan--before and during and in order to bring about the Soviet invasion--which unleashed the global jihad that has also attacked Russia in "the East", and decades of US support for right wing political Islam (Islamism) and, now, the so-called Arab Spring, that the Kremlin doesn't suspect that the long term US strategy is to back a Basmachi revival, essentially, in order to contain and ultimately dismember Russia and China (restive Muslims of Xinjiang). The Great Game, Turkestan, East Turkestan, Russian Turkestan, Central Asia … suddenly, everything old is new again (like in Europe following the collapse of Communism and the re-emergence of countries we read about in school studying pre-WW I history).
The really fascinating and disturbing thing is how the policy seems to transcend party differences, how you can draw a line from Brzezinski and Carter and their intrigue and involvement in Afghanistan and Iran all the way down through Obama's backing of the Arab Spring and the unnecessary intervention in Libya--on the Islamist side. At some stage after 9/11 there should have been an honest discussion in the US about the way support for Islamism blew back. But there wasn't.
Not surprising that nobody suggests that maybe the US and Russia should try to figure something out, come to terms about--God forbid--spheres of influence, etc. The Cold War ended two decades ago. But NATO was expanded. Radical Islam threatens Russia and China as well as the US. But even after 9/11 there seems to have been no serious effort on the part of the US to put differences aside and unite to defeat a common enemy. Among liberals and conservatives (and neocons) these are heretical thoughts--way too independent and complex for sloganeering and campaigning. (Which plays into the hands of an old-line isolationist like Ron Paul, who seems to represent the Pat Buchanan/Charles Lindbergh/anti-Semitic wing of the GOP.)
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If some of the above upsets anyone or makes you mad, too bad, I have no sympathy for you. The facts stand as they are and no one is forcing you to stop in here and read. Fact is the West and Russia have blown multiple opportunities to work together to stomp out radical islam and they have both failed badly here.
Anti-antisemitism lives in both major parties and is turning the clock back in Europistan to the 1930's. This is going to get much worse before it gets any better. PatriotUSA
From Foreign Confidential
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Regarding Russia's View of 'the East'
By Confidential Reporter
Given the dangers that the United States faces in Iran and Syria, and the rapidly deteriorating U.S. relationship with Russia with respect to these and other issues, one does not have to agree entirely with Andrew Wilson to appreciate his timely and insightful essay. He writes:
Till recently, the West (and, for historical reasons, particularly Britain) prided itself on having a unique insight into the thinking and politics of the Arab world. Something that involved a sympathetic, and even romantic, attitude towards Islam, evidenced by the exploits of Lawrence of Arabia and others.
The British and Americans never paused to consider the rival claim of Russia to an equal, or even superior expertise in the same region, sustained by a wide-ranging foreign intelligence service, the professional input of a far-seeing academic community, and intercourse with Arab élites trained in Soviet universities;
Today the West subscribes to the ultimately liberating consequences of the Arab spring. But Russia obviously has a much more skeptical attitude; and the West might do well to heed it.
What give Russia its title to an independent view is its proximity to the arena in which things are happening. The wind of militant Islam is already blowing not only on the heterogeneous ex-Soviet republics which offer a frail barrier to events in Iran an Afghanistan but also on its own territory in the North Caucasus.
Click here to continue reading Wilson's article.
And click here to read about Russian Turkestan, or Russian Central Asia; here, to read about the Basmachi Revolt of 1916-1931, which is virtually unknown in the West; and here, to watch a classic, Soviet-era, Russian Eastern about the uprising. Considered Russia's most popular movie, White Sun of the Desert illuminates Wilson's point about Russia's proximity to and long history of involvement in "the East."
Original source is here.
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