Why was he poisoned?  Litvinenko, a former KGB/FSB agent who left the service and defected to London was a staunch critic of the Putin regime, and apparently knew too much for the Kremlin to bare.  For Litvinenko implicated the Russian government in a variety of terrorist attacks, abroad for example through their training of Al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri in 1998, and disgustingly at home through an attempted bombing of an apartment complex in 1999, and the infamous 2002 Moscow theater and 2004 Beslan school attacks.

I recently read his book Allegations, which in light of recent events is proving quite prescient.

One argument he makes that should resonate with all of us regards political resistance to the criminal Russian government:

There is no need to break any law, even most cruel one, in order to remain humans and citizens.  All we need to do is to take a civic stance, to demand that the authorities strictly obey the constitution.  Putin and his propaganda team know this, so they try to divide us, to set us against each other.  In doing so, the Kremlin strategists appeal to the lowest instincts, using every ethnic, religious or property differences we may have.  That is exactly why we must understand that our common enemy now is Putin’s regime (Allegations, 100).

Is this not precisely what we are witnessing today?  Our citizens are peacefully demanding a return to the Constitution, while our Progressive Putins try to spark racial and class warfare to divide and conquer us.

Much like the great Russian novelists who observe and depict the human soul with unparalleled clarity, too Litvinenko has great insight with regard to the souls of our pols.  Speaking of the lack of a will in the West to defend Eastern European states from Russian provocations, he argues in the case of Lithuania that:

It would be very naive to expect the West to protect you.  You should count on your own forces rather than anything else.  Western politicians are pragmatics, and are not prepared to fight for the freedom of Lithuania against Russia, with its nuclear and bacteriological arsenals.  Unfortunately, the major Western leaders seem to have forgotten world history.  They live from an election to an election and do not even try to see further than the next four years.  They try to play with Putin like they played with his Nazi predecessors on 1930s’ Germany.  They sacrifice the democratic principles for the short-term tactical interests.  Indeed, they may get some tactical benefits, but they are losing strategically (168).

Could not we replace Lithuania with Israel?  And have not our Western leaders forgotten history and sacrificed long-term survival for short-term victories in every political sphere?  Are we not making serious strategic errors when it comes to the Iranians, the Chinese, the Russians and other rogue states and their terrorist allies?  Are we not slowly but surely sacrificing Western civilization to Sharia?  Are we not blinded in devising policy based on multiculturalism and specifically the belief that all peoples are the same and share the same goals and aspirations?

One of the more refreshingly pointed parts of Litvinenko’s work lies in his criticism of the UN.  He argues (with my emphasis added):

First of all, we should remember that the UN is an outdated and wasteful organization, which only discredits the international law, values of humanity, and basic moral principles.  It was created after the Second World War by Stalin and Roosevelt. The difference between the two founders’ political ideals was not so big: if Stalin was a Bolshevik, Roosevelt was a Menshevik.  Mensheviks disagreed with Bolsheviks on some tactical issues, such as how money should be collected from party members, but their ultimate goals were the same: to take away our property, to share it ‘justly’, and to force all of us into one socialist prison camp.

The UN founders’ idea was that the organization would solve international conflicts and restrain the aggressive states such as Nazi Gemany.  In reality, it could play such a role only for a few years, until the Cold War started.  Ever since then, the USSR and then Russia [and we might insert any other enemy powers here] skillfully manipulated the UN, to use it only against the United States and the West in general – against precisely those countries which abide by international law.

If the Soviet Union and later Russia wanted to start a war, they would just do that, without asking UN permission.  If the US or the UK wanted to much as to introduce sanctions against some fascist dictator, they had to spend years pleading for the UN to pass a resolution allowing that.

It has never happened in history that the UN effectively opposed a dictatorship or a dictator. The only exception was the 1949 Korean War, where the Western armies fought against communism under the UN flag, and that happened only by chance.  The Soviets, still experienced in manipulating international organizations, made a tactical mistake – walked out of a meeting, — so an anti-communist resolution was passed.  But ever since then, the UN always ignored human rights abuses in North Korea and Cuba, USSR and China and now Russia and Chechnya.

Being a predominantly US-financed organization, the UN however has become a cover for a great many of spies from Russia and other tyrannies and dictatorships.  Whenever the Soviet regime or its Russian successors [or again, most any other hostile regimes] were in trouble, they simply manipulated the UN into passing or rejecting a respective resolution.  So, they would get authoritative judgments saying that there was nothing wrong in their actions, while all their opponents were real war criminals (169-70).

Yet our President believes that our allies should be subject to show trials at the hands of this this morally bankrupt, hypocritical, illegitimate and dangerous institution.  John Bolton, we need you now more than ever.

Meanwhile, today President Obama maintains a cozy relationship with Russia, as reflected in a recent White House press release on the upcoming June 22-24 meeting between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.  The statement reads:

Over the last eighteen months, the United States and Russia have made significant strides in resetting relations between our two countries in ways that advance our mutual interests. Since first meeting in London in April 2009, President Obama and President Medvedev have collaborated closely to enhance the security and well-being of the American and Russian people, including the expansion of the Northern Distribution Network, which supplies our troops in Afghanistan; the signing of the New START Treaty, which reduces our nuclear arsenals, enhances transparency about our strategic forces, and demonstrates U.S. and Russian leadership in support of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; new sanctions against North Korea, designed to compel North Korea to adhere to its international obligations; the full and active pursuit of the dual track strategy that seeks Iran’s compliance with its international obligations regarding its nuclear program, including most recently UN Security Council Resolution 1929; and the creation of a Bilateral President Commission, which has expanded dramatically the interactions among Americans and Russians on a whole range of issues, including emergency disaster response, space, counternarcotics, counterterrorism, energy efficiency, and trade and investment, among others.

Politico notes further:

In a separate statement marking Russia Day, President Obama stressed the two nation’s “strong partnership”:

“On behalf of the American people, I extend my best wishes to all those who observe Russia Day. On June 12, 1992, the first Congress of the Russian Federation declared a new sovereign nation. But the relationship between our peoples goes back much further. This year, we celebrated the 65th Anniversary of the end of World War II, and it was the joint Allied forces that defeated fascism. Today, our two nations continue in our strong partnership, mutual respect and friendship, and I am proud of the new START Treaty and our joint efforts to reduce our nuclear arsenals. Beyond that, our two nations continue to expand our commercial and economic ties. Here in America, many Americans can trace their origins to Russia, and all of them are an important part of our national identity.“

What would Litvinenko say of this newfound love based on “mutual respect and friendship,” with a Russia that is a cesspool of corruption, graft and violence run by former KGB leaders?  Juxtapose the White House’s glowing statements with Alexander’s (again, my emphasis added):

Indeed, the greatest real threat to world civilization today is the Russian Mafia orchestrated by special services.  Covertly, without drawing much attention, it spreads its tentacles all over the world.

Russian Mafia, along with its Western accomplices like former German Chancellor Schroeder, presents a real threat to Western democracy…Western police agencies, obsessed with the so-called war on terrorism, resort to collaborating with the Russian Mafia, represented by people like Putin, Patrushev, Ivanov and their likes.  The problem is that it is natural for Mafia to corrupt the statehood, like the rust which eats metal away.  If Western democracies collaborate with the KGB regime long enough, they are at risk of degrading to the level of backward and corrupt Russia. Western countries can simply lose their democratic statehoods to the Mafia, leaving their citizens defenceless in front of that mortal danger (204).

In an interview with the Chechen press, note as well the following exchange:

Chechenpress: What can you say about the terrorist attacks in London?  Which forces have masterminded these attacks?  From which part of the world are they?

Litvinenko: There is only one thing I know for certain.  The centre of the world terrorism today is not in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or Chechen Republic.  The terrorist threat which spreads all over the world originates from the Kremlin and Lubyanka offices.  Terrorism will not end, more bombs will explode and more blood will shed, unless the Russian special services are dissolved, banned and condemned.  There are no statutes of limitation for terrorism.  We must pursue and prosecute all those involved in it as long as they are alive, not award them Nobel Peace Prizes and erect monuments to them.  I must say it again: the leaders of Soviet and Russian special services, such as Yuri Andropov, Vladimir Putin and Nikolai Patrushev, were (and in some cases still are) behind all the terrorists I named.  These people are the world’s chief terrorists, and their place is not among the leaders of civilized nations, but in the dock.  Unless they are condemned like the Nazi Gestapo, there will be no end to the terrorism in the world (218).

For background, Litvinenko in Allegations refers not just to al-Zawahiri, but also Carlos the Jackal, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein and numerous others as trained KGB agents or at a minimum close allies, and many of these ties have been corroborated as information has seeped out of Russia over the years.

It is clear throughout his writings that Litvinenko had an axe to grind when it came to the Russian regime that commanded him to commit murder, an order that led him to resign.  Nevertheless, even if we assume that he exaggerates and Russia is not a mortal threat to us, there still seems to be value beyond particular allegations.

Litvinenko provides another potential layer of evidence of the alliance between the leftists, in this case of the ruthless Eastern garden variety and the militant Muslim world.  Also, based upon his scathing critique of the Putin government, even leaving aside the necessarily conspiratorial aspect to his arguments, Litvinenko gives us serious pause, in light of an Obama administration that nixes plans for defense shields, reduces nuclear stockpiles, deepens economic ties and palls around with Russian leaders; the Russians who in addition to allegedly sponsoring terrorism and shepherding in all sorts of criminality ally with the the likes of the Iranians, the Turks and the Venezuelans.

In closing, while Russia in particular may represent only one threat among many to the Western world today, Alexander Litvinenko’s warnings and wisdom appear valuable more generally.  For their must have been more than a grain of truth in his words, given his horrific assassination.

Most importantly, his was a clarion call that we must stop the madness of our foreign policy in which our Progressive Putins ally themselves with the forces of evil and thumb their noses at the forces of good, lest we become the evil ourselves.

The first thing that needs to be said is that he meant well. He is not a vindictive man, and he sought to put behind him the controversies and turmoil of the Clinton years. He thought that his focus would be domestic policy, but, as tends to happen, events intervened.

Had it not been for 9/11, George W. Bush would probably have been a one-term President. He fell short of his adversary in the popular vote but won a majority in the electoral college. He was destined to be weak — but when disaster struck, he was in the line of fire, and he rose to the occasion.

He made one crucially good choice when he ran for office. He chose Dick Cheney as his running mate, and he leaned on him for advice throughout his Presidency. With the support of Cheney, Bush chose to treat 9/11 as what it was: an act of war. He launched an assault on the regime of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which had supported Osama bin Laden and Al Q’aeda; he managed to drive them from power and install a government more friendly to the United States: and he set in motion a twilight war against Al Q’aeda that prevented further attacks within our borders. This was no mean accomplishment.

Mindful of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, of his failure in the intervening years to honor the ceasefire negotiated in 1991, of the role he seems to have played in the first attempt to bring down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and of intelligence reports strongly suggesting that, contrary to the terms of that ceasefire, the man had maintained a clandestine program for the production of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, Bush turned his attention to Iraq, and there, too, his administration managed to overturn a tyrannical regime.

It was in the aftermath that things began to go sour. Saddam was adept at bluffing, and he fooled everyone. He had maintained a skeleton operation, ready to produce such weapons, and he had played cat-and-mouse with the UN inspectors in such a fashion as to leave the impression that he had a great deal more to hide. The absence of a large-scale program made it possible for the left to mount a vicious assault on Bush’s integrity, and he never managed adequately to counter their claims.

One cannot blame him for the invasion. Given the information available, it was the right thing to do. One can, however, blame the Bush administration for failing to make use of the information available to respond to their critics.

When the United States took Baghdad, our soldiers captured a treasure trove of tapes, recording Iraqi cabinet meetings and numerous other meetings between Saddam Hussein and others — including foreign visitors and those within his inner circle. The Institute for Defense Analyses ran these tapes through a computer designed to identify passages in which certain key words for used, and from this they produced a series of classified reports — some of which documented in detail the connections between the Iraqi regime and various terrorist organizations. When officials at the institute sought permission to release these reports to the general public, they were repeatedly turned down.

Bush and his advisors blundered in one other crucial regard. They were advised by military men with experience in Kosovo that it was crucial that they flood Iraq in the aftermath of the American invasion with military police capable of maintaining order. I am told that Jim Webb, now a Senator from Virginia, repeatedly proffered similar advice reflecting his experience in Vietnam. This they ignored. The army was, as always, reluctant to do anything other than re-fight World War II, and Bush himself appears to have had no idea what to do next. The first few months were squandered because of a lack of clarity with regard to postwar policy, and the administration ultimately opted to attempt an occupation on the cheap.

The result — which was not only predictable but predicted — was a Sunni insurrection supportive of and supported by Al Q’aeda and something approaching a civil war. It was not until after the losses suffered by his party in the midterm elections of 2006 that Bush felt compelled to alter his strategy. And, then, against all the odds and in the teeth of fierce opposition within Congress, the armed forces, and our intelligence agencies, he not only managed to install in Iraq a group of officers prepared to implement a counter-insurgency strategy and eager to win; he also managed to fend off attempts to deny them support; and, sustained by his resolution, they brought the struggle to a successful conclusion.

This was undoubtedly Bush’s finest hour, and it was a fine hour, indeed. In the long run, developments in Iraq may justify the blood we shed and the treasure we spent. As I argued in a recent post on Powerline, the era of Arab nationalism is coming to an ignominious end; the only seemingly viable alternative in the field is the Islamic revival fostered by the Muslim Brotherhood; and it, too, is bound to fail in the long run — for, while Islam may offer spiritual solace, it does not provide a plausible answer to the social, economic, and political problems that beset the Arab-speaking world. If, however, the Iraqi democracy survives and prospers, it will serve as another alternative, and there lies hope.

What I have to say in this regard is not mere speculation. Across the border in Iran, the Iraqi achievement has already served as an inspiration. If our fellow Muslims in Iraq can be free, can openly debate anything and everything and decide matters in free and open elections, the Iranians tell themselves, there is no reason why we cannot do so ourselves; and now, as a consequence of the Iraqi example, the Iranians are willing to fight for their freedom. Had the Obama administration had the wit to give them wholehearted American backing last summer, we might not now be worrying that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will soon have nuclear weapons at his disposal.

There is a little to be said in praise of George W. Bush’s domestic policy, but only that. The tax cuts he initiated have undoubtedly been a help, and the stimulus checks sent out in his first term may have done some good at the time. But the easy-money policy followed by the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board during his time in office was a disaster exceeded only by the policy followed by those bodies under Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Bush never managed to find an adequate Secretary of the Treasury; he failed to put an end to mismanagement at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; and we have paid dearly for the fecklessness of his administration.

In other areas, he also did damage. Though well-meaning, he was not well-instructed, and the advice he received was often not good. Many of those who served him are proud of his educational initiative (“No Child Left Behind”) and of the Prescription Drug Benefit he added to Medicare. They should be ashamed.

Both programs were unprincipled efforts at triangulation on the model of the Clinton administration in the days when Dick Morris was riding high. The first opened the way for even more extensive federal regulation of institutions that should be regarded as resolutely local. The second paved the way for Obamacare.

Like his father and like Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon in an earlier time, George W. Bush was a business progressive, marching — if at a slower pace — to the same drummer as the Democratic Party and committed, as its adherents are, to the notion that “rational administration” from the center is the answer to every political question. With these initiatives, he contributed mightily, if unwittingly, to an expansion of the administrative state and to its propensity to subvert federalism and run roughshod over local autonomy.

There was one other regard in which the younger Bush fell short, and it was, I believe, reprehensible in the extreme. When he was inaugurated, Bush — like every President before and since — swore to uphold and defend the Constitution. George W. Bush broke that oath; he betrayed this country; and he did so knowingly — when he signed McCain-Feingold.

The first and most important of our liberties is political liberty. All of our rights depend upon its being sustained. It is essential that American elections be free and open. That is why we have the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is the most important item in the Bill of Rights. Those who framed this amendment were not concerned with artistic freedom and with freedom of expression; they took moral police and moral censorship at the local level for granted — and rightly so. They stipulated, however, that political speech be free and that the press be free as well, and they did so because they recognized that, in the absence of this freedom, if there was not free and open political debate, we would cease to be a self-governing people.

McCain-Feingold is an attempt on the part of progressives to introduce “rational administration” into the messy realm of politics by empowering an appointed commission of putative experts — in no way accountable to the American people — to decide who can say what, when, and where in the political arena. George W. Bush understood this; he expressed his misgivings; then, he signed on. For this, he cannot be forgiven.

I think that I know why he did it. If my suspicions are right, it was all part of a deal with John McCain, who, after being unjustly included in the Keating Five, set off on a futile, pathetic, and disgraceful quest to recover what he took to be his honor — in which he sought to eliminate the system that requires public officials to raise money for campaigns and was willing to sacrifice our liberty in the process. That deal, if a deal there was, guaranteed Senator McCain’s enthusiastic support for President Bush’s re-election bid. If this is what happened, however, if there really was such a deal, it was as corrupt a bargain as we in America have ever seen.

It was President Bush’s hope and expectation that the Supreme Court would declare McCain-Feingold unconstitutional. Thanks to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which is now before the Supreme Court, his hopes may — as Bradley A. Smith suggests in the current issue of National Affairs — soon be vindicated. But nothing can excuse Bush’s failure as President to do what he knew to be his constitutional duty and veto the bill.

Barack Obama represents a threat to liberty, but he may not be as dangerous as certain of liberty’s putative defenders. What he stands for is clear enough, and, as Scott Brown and his supporters have now shown, we have the means with which to resist such an onslaught. Those, however, whom we take to be on our own side, those who nonetheless betray the cause of liberty and advance — even if at a slow pace — the growth of the administrative state are, I think, a greater threat — for, by taking us in, they make us complicit in liberty’s demise.

It is vitally important that, in 2012, the Republicans nominate for the Presidency a principled defender of limited government and American constitutionalism. One more business progressive, one more rational manager who thinks that he can make the welfare state hum, and we are doomed.

Top Obama donor and fundraiser Jodie Evans met with the Taliban in Afghanistan on a recent trip there, according to a report by Jane Fonda of a discussion she had with Evans last month. The meeting with the Taliban took place just weeks before Evans was videotaped directly handing to President Barack Obama a package of information about her trip to Afghanistan at a high dollar fundraiser in San Francisco.

Jodie Evans and Jane Fonda, photo by Jane Halifax

The meeting with the Taliban was kept secret by Evans and her group Code Pink in reports she and the group posted from Kabul and in interviews with the media and bloggers about the trip. Fonda, a close friend of Evans, let the secret meeting slip in an account of her dinner with Evans at a fundraiser for the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles:

Last Saturday, My dear friends Jodie Evans and Max Palevsky, invited Richard and me to join them at their table at a fundraiser at the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood. It was a good evening for lots of reasons. I had never been to the museum and definitely want to go back. Clearly it is a courageous place, very cutting edge. Then, too, I saw lots of friends I hadn’t seen in a long time and I sat next to Jodie who told me a little about her recent trip to Afghanistan with an American delegation that included a retired colonel, and member the State Department (Army Reserves Col. (Ret.) and ex-diplomat Ann Wright). While there, she met with people ranging from the brother of President Karzai, Afghan members of Parliament, activists, to warlords and members of the Taliban (emphasis added.) Jodie is co-founder of the peace organization, Code Pink, and always willing to go to any lengths to try and find out what’s really going on. Bottom line: everyone she met with wants the U.S. Military out of their country. They feel our presence there has brought more violence rather than security. Please read a short article she wrote about the trip which is on the Women’s Media Center website.

There is precedent to suspect that Evans is acting as a conduit for the Taliban to Obama. In June, her fellow Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin hand carried a letter out of Gaza from the terrorist group Hamas addressed to Obama.

Over the seven years of its existence, Code Pink has acted as propaganda shills for the anti-American governments of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, Cuba’s Castro brothers and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, as well as Middle Eastern terrorist groups.

Fonda has her own history of working with America’s enemies. During the Vietnam war she visited North Vietnam in 1972 and was photographed manning an anti-aircraft battery used to shoot down American planes. Fonda also recorded propaganda radio broadcasts for the North Vietnamese communists

In 2007 Code Pink brought Fonda out of protest retirement at a so-called antiwar demonstration held at the Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C.

What was in the package that Evans gave Obama at the San Francisco fundraiser? She describes what she gave Obama in an article at the Huffington Post:

…we were careful to make the package very user and security friendly. It was filled with photos, quotes, thousands of signatures (on a petition against more troops for Afghanistan), a copy of Rethink Afghanistan and our 25-minute interview with Afghan MP Dr. Roshanak Wardak from Wardak Province, who is adamant that the U.S. should not send new troops and rather, must leave.

Evans notes that she gave a similar package to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who was also at the fundraiser being held in her city.

No mention is made by Evans on whether she relayed oral or written messages from the Taliban to Obama. However, it is a strong possibility given Fonda’s revelation and Code Pink’s history.

Code Pink’s image as kooky but well-meaning women committed to peace is belied by their words and actions. At home they work to undermine morale in our soldiers, their families and the American public. Abroad they work with terrorist enemies of the United States.

And one of Code Pink’s co-founders, Jodie Evans, works with President Obama. Is anyone in our nation’s capital paying attention?

Last week in San Francisco, Obama headlined a three million dollar fundraiser at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. The San Francisco Chronicle reports about 160 people paid $30,400 or more per couple for a private dinner with Obama followed by a reception costing $500 to $1000 that drew over 900 attendees. Among those at the dinner was the leftist, so-called antiwar group Code Pink co-founder, Jodie Evans.

The Chronicle reports Jodie Evans had a several minutes long conversation with Obama at the fundraiser.

Why does Jodie Evans merit such face time with the president even though she acts as an agent of influence for the anti-American governments of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as Middle Eastern terrorists?

Over the life of the campaign, Jodie Evans became one of Obama’s top donors, giving the maximum $2300 to his respective primary and general election funds and tens of thousands of dollars more to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint Obama-Democratic National Committee fund.

Jodie Evans and Code Pink are also allied with the anti-American governments of Venezuela and Cuba. She met with Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez in 2006 and has declared him a “sweetheart.” Jodie Evans traveled to Cuba in 2007 and worked with the Castro government to propagandize against the U.S.

In September 2008, just a couple of weeks after meeting Obama at a big money Hollywood fundraiser at the historic Greystone mansion in Beverly Hills, Jodie Evans met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York City. Afterward, Jodie Evans proclaimed him to be “really about peace and human rights and respecting justice.”

Jodie Evans told the Chronicle she delivered a petition to Obama last night from Afghan women urging him to not send more troops to Afghanistan to give women a place at the table for the reconciliation process. Jodie Evans didn’t say that the petition was actually Code Pink’s idea, and not the Afghan women’s initiative.