23 December 2007

Chechists



Felix Dzerzhinsky

I'll get to something heartwarming and quirky for the season, I promise. But it is year-end, and time to contemplate some of the things that have happened in this strange and unsettling year.

I was watching Michigan State play Texas in college hoops last night with the Boys. They came by Big Pink to sample my best effort at Buffalo Wings, with a fiery sauce I had concocted, coupled with a more cooling chunky Roquefort dressing.

Earlier in the day, I had discovered that my poultry shears had not survived the divorce. The scissors from the desk were inadequate to separate the wings into their modular components, and after several fits and starts, I found myself washing and sanitizing my old woodsman's hatchet to accomplish the serial dismemberment.

It was overkill, clearly, but the “thunk” of the heavy implement going through the flesh and into the cutting board was satisfyingly efficient. It reminded me of the Joint Staff evaluation of successful targeting: “visually pleasing destruction.” I managed not to get too excited, and avoided collateral damage to the faux marble counter below.

Later, washed and drained, the wings came out of the deep-fryer in good order, and between batches I peeking into the living room to see how the game was going. The Spartans cruised through the game, staying ten points ahead all the way.

During one of my moments with the game, between baking the rolls and swirling the sauce over the wings, I noticed that Texas Coach Rick Barnes bore a remarkable resemblance to Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. The same bloodless lips and cold blue eyes below the high forehead.

Perhaps I am not being fair. Barnes is from Hickory, North Carolina, and Putin is from Leningrad, even if they have changed the name of his hometown to something more quaint. There was something about the look on Coach Barne's face as he dealt with a losing proposition that reminded me even more of Vladimir, back in the days when he was consolidating power and Russia seemed to be flat on its ass.

I have always been a Putin fan, in the sort dread fascination that some people liked the Slytherin House in the Harry Potter books. There was a professional respect for the hardships that former KGB Major Putin was handing adversity. Come to think of it, Mr. Putin reminds me a little of Lucius Malfoy, too.

I never was enamored with him in the way that President Bush was when they first met down in Crawford at that surreal barbeque weekend. That business about “looking into his soul” creeped me out. I have not met the world leader and former KGB officer, but I am willing to bet that as the CEO of a great power, he has the same public morals as any other cold-blooded lizard.

It goes with the territory, and if the territory happens to be Great Russia, you would be right to think it would have an extra measure of arctic chill.

I like the Russians I have met as people, and keep that separate from how they act en masse. I was last in Russia ten years ago, talking to some scientists about projects on which we might collaborate. There was a profound sadness at the institutes, since there was great science being done amid a crumbling infrastructure.

I have not had an inclination to go back, since I no longer have the sanction of the government to get me out of jams. My associate Ed was doing some similar work, trying to harness some old Soviet technology for new applications, and he wound up in Lubyanka Prison, just like the bad old days.

Periodically they talk about re-erecting the 14-ton statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky out in front of the former KGB Headquarters. The day I got there the square was still unadorned, and the statue was still on its back, looking up with cold sightless eyes. There is an uncanny likeness to Mr. Putin, except for the goatee.

Dzerzhinsky was a polish-born Bolshie, who was ordered by Lenin in 1917 to establish the first communist intelligence service. That pre-dated the founding of the Soviet State by almost five years, which is a point of pride for members and alumni of the service. Dzerzhinsky's outfit had a formal name, which was the "Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle against Counterrevolution, Espionage, Speculation, and Sabotage" - known by its Russian abbreviation, Checka.

All Russian intelligence officers, in the active nine services, or retired, like myself, refer to themselves as "Chechists." That includes Mr. Putin, who is proud of it.

I suppose that would make me a career anti-Chechist, since that was the struggle that occupied most of my adult life and now seems to be back for my sons.

The Chechists busted Ed in April of 2000, and held him until almost Christmas. They said at the time that it was a signal from the new Russian President that things were going to change, and that the security services were not going to allow Russia to be a doormat to the West any longer.

I never did get to St. Petersburg, since there was a minor diplomatic flap that precluded my leaving Moscow for that leg of the itinerary, or the closed military city in Siberia where they were still doing some exciting things. I do not expect to ever go there again, not after what happened to Ed, and not after what Mr. Putin has done to Russia.

They say that the KGB used to be a state within the old Soviet state. Now, freed from the shackles of the old Party, it is the State.

It is a pity that America has bungled its energy policy so badly. In addition to enriching Islamic extremists, the skyrocketing price of oil and raw materials has revitalized the Russian economy, and permitted the Kremlin to return to all sorts of traditional mischief.

There is a subtle difference, since the old troika is gone. Once there was the party, the Army and the KGB, which worked in a sort of uneasy harness. Now it is just the Chechists. In control of everything- every ministry, every enterprise, and every resource, including the nukes.

As an intelligence professional, I can only look on in astonishment, and wonder at how Mr. Putin has pulled it off. I'll be frank, I support the constitution of the United States, and all its manifest blessings.

But it still makes you a little envious, you know?

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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