Did Condé Nast Kill the Story of the Year to Appease Putin?
He continues chillingly:
It is a mystery that lies at the very heart of the modern Russian state, one that remains unsolved to this day. In the awful events of September 1999, did Russia find an avenging angel in Vladimir Putin, the proverbial man of action who crushed his nation’s attackers and led his people out of a time of crisis? Or was that crisis actually manufactured to benefit Putin, a scheme by Russia’s secret police to bring one of their own to power? What makes this question important is that absent the bombings of September 1999 and all that transpired as a result, it is hard to conceive of any scenario whereby Putin would hold the position he enjoys today: a player on the global stage, the ruler of one of the most powerful nations on earth.
It is peculiar, then, how few people outside Russia seem to have wanted that question answered. Several intelligence agencies are believed to have conducted investigations into the apartment bombings, but none have released their findings. Very few American lawmakers have shown an interest in the bombings. In 2003 John McCain declared in Congress that “there remain credible allegations that Russia’s FSB had a hand in carrying out these attacks.” But otherwise, neither the U.S. government nor the American media have ever shown much inclination to explore the matter.
The heroic Russian website Grani.ru maintains a special page devoted to the investigation in both Russian and English, but as Anderson notes the issue has otherwise largely been ignored in Russia as well.
That’s because of the third key point, and here Anderson’s reporting becomes absolutely essential: It’s the murders, stupid!
Anderson sounds, at long last, the clarion call of warning that only one man remains active in Russia trying to tell the truth about the bombings, a man whose days are surely numbered. That man’s name is Mikhail Trepashkin, the real focus of Anderson’s reporting. Anderson interviewed Trepashkin at length in Russia and found his allegations obviously credible and disturbing. Indeed, Anderson emphasizes that for most of his life Trepashkin was a hardcore true believer of the KGB and worked to prevent Boris Yeltsin from coming to power and unraveling the fabric of the USSR Trepashkin had worked so hard to weave. Only when he saw his own organization threaten the survival of his own people did he finally see the light.
Both of the key members on the shadow commission that was created to investigate the bombings when the official government commission stonewalled and then shut down, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, were murdered. When KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko tried to pick up their fallen flag, he too was struck down — in the most brazen act of political assassination since the fall of the USSR. Given the fact that the Kremlin razed the sites of the bombings and has never convicted any Chechen of involvement of any kind, any thinking person should be able to understand that the Kremlin has something to hide. Considering that the KGB was caught red-handed trying to bomb yet another building, it’s clear what that something is.
Murder.
Finally, Anderson drops Trepashkin’s bombshell, the one that got him arrested five years ago. Trepashkin found out that immediately after the Moscow bombings a known KGB operative, Vladimir Romanovich, had been identified by local residents as being involved in the plot. Before the KGB could stop it, local newspapers in Moscow had run a sketch of Romanovich. Soon the KGB intervened, pulling the drawing and replacing it with one of another man, but Trepashkin researched the archives when he learned about the original report, obtained a copy of the drawing, and recognized Romanovich.
Trepashkin, you see, is like Litvinenko — a KGB defector. As soon as Trepashkin started making waves with the drawing at the show trial of two men the Kremlin was attempting to frame for the bombings, Trepashkin was arrested. He spent the next five years in prison, only being released a few months ago.
Now released, Trepashkin is back on the trail. Anderson realizes that the Kremlin will surely kill him unless his profile can be raised high enough that doing so would be fraught with peril, hence his piece for GQ. Little did he know that his publisher would, as if they were working on orders from Putin himself, virtually kill the piece — burying it so deep that nobody would notice and refusing to run it in Russia. In essence, he had risked his life for nothing.
The only hope is that the scandal created by the magazine’s cowardice will generate a second life for the piece, that perhaps some mainstream publishers will turn out to have more guts than GQ and pick up this vital story and give it the attention it deserves. Maybe then our governments will do the same, and we as voters must demand that they do. Otherwise, we too will be complicit in the rise of the neo-Soviet state awash in blood.
Anderson’s piece reads like an open invitation, perhaps even a plea, to the Republican Party to follow John McCain’s lead and step into the leadership vacuum created by the woefully weak polices of the Obama administration towards Russia. If the Republicans cannot sense the opportunity here, at least from a political perspective if not a moral one, then they do not deserve to govern.
Trutherism for thee, but not for me? Et tu, liberals????
With the Democrats afflicted with appeasementitis and in love with dictator types (eg, Chavez, Castro, etc.), it’s no wonder the US never pursued this. And since we’re talking conspiracies here, another reason the US may not have pursued this is that it’s a quid-pro-quo to cover up any complicity by the US in the sinking of the Kursk which happened one year after the apartment bombings.
I never thought I’d long for the Clinton years but after eight months of BHO, I’d take Clinton back in a heartbeat.
Republicans? See an opportunity? Take a political stand?
Really? Republicans?
Somebody look around the club house for one, maybe under the bar?
Good luck trying to find the article inside of GQ, amidst its endless ads featuring modern satyrs in pointy shoes and constant, PC sneering. Man up, America.
Lies! Libel! You only have to look deep into Putin’s eyes to see the soul of a saint!
the thing is, while the Us closed their eyes on the Chechen repression, (and helped Russia by providing her electronic materials), Russia would leave the free path to the US into ME operations : we call that “tacit entente”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Es2ww1uBTQ
Republican leadership is now a historical irrelevancy.
Expect nothing from them and you will not be disappointed.
I am a life long registered Republican, but I’m also a realist. We are on the train that has left the station and I am no longer concerned or frustrated with the fact that they were never on it.
my comment 7. was response to 3.Pelaut….forgot that!
Yet another reason why the United States is losing credibility to be the standard bearer of the best of humankind.
So, why should Putin and his crowd get away with it? I still maintain a co-ordinated foreign policy, based on the Borjomi Declaration, be brought into play. The Baltic countries, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, the Balkans, and the original signatories combined would command respect and notice to put the deformed souls in the Kremlin on notice. Either they leave, or the borders of Russia will change, so that the oil that they use to bully is
out of their reach.
“a quid-pro-quo to cover up any complicity by the US in the sinking of the Kursk which happened one year after the apartment bombings.”
There is no mystery about the Kuesk. There was a hot run in the fore torpedo tube. Somebody pushed the wrong button. The Data was recovered.
As far as Putin using a staged event to seize power, that is a sovereign issue for the Russians. What it isn’t is news. ALL changes in Soviet leadership came about thru plots of one sort or another.
Under all socialist systems, power is taken, THEN the elections are held. The US elections of ’08 were along the same general lines. The Democrats brought EVERY illegal weapon in their arsenal to the election in ’08. ACORN, Diebold machines, dead voters, stuffed ballot boxes, everything. In parts of MN, there were more votes then voters.
The judiciary stood and watched, when it wasn’t being complaisant. Why should the MSM cover a rigged Soviet style election in Russia when it was the norm? They wouldn’t cover a rigged election in America where it was news.
The truly horrible thing about this is that it will lead to Civil War. Americans are NOT Russians. We take the voting thing seriously. When the facts emerge, as they always do, there will be ‘ell to pay. With the ballot box corrupt and the jury box empty, the only outlets left for Americans are the soap box and the cartridge box. The government is looking to shut up the soap box. Guess what that leaves?
I don’t think Putin was behind the bombings. Yes, he ultimately benefited from them, but if he planned that from the start then he is so satanic and all powerful that he could have just magically taken over the country. The war he started after the bombings was so unpopular at first that no one at the time would have considered it even remotely likely that he would eventually become popular.
It was unlikely to have been perpetrated by ordinary Chechen rebels. They would not have gained from another war and losing the autonomy that they were gradually gaining. It is more likely that it was Islamic militants in the region deliberately stirring things up. That’s what they do, because actual people don’t matter to them.]
I am no fan of Putin, but there are more than enough things that he as genuinely done wrong, both out of malice and incompetence, for anyone to have to make things up.
Bush looked into Putin’ eyes and found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy. He was able to get a sense of his soul. Case closed.
11 Lisa…
“Blowing Up Russia” and “Putin’s Labyrinth” are just two powerful books written by Russian journalists since 2000 at the risk of their lives, showing that Putin and those accountable to him are involved.
Journalists who have written such books are mostly either dead or in hiding today. Alexander Litvinenko, co-author of “Blowing Up Russia” was assassinated in England. Scotland Yard identified the likely guilty party and issued a warrant to Moscow requesting extradition. Putin rejected it out of hand with no investigation.
The following from the dust jacket of “Putin’s Labyrinth”:
“Consider the month of October 2006:A killer fired four shots into Anna Politkovskaya, killing the journalist in her apartment house. Three days later, gunmen killed banker Alexander Plokhin, the head of a Moscow branch of Vneshtorgbank. Days after that, the victim was Anatoly Voronin, business director of the ITAR-TASS news agency. Finally, a lone assailant used a Kalashnikov with a silence to execute Dmitry Fotyanov, a mayoral candidate in the mining town of Dalnegorsk. None of the murders was solved.”
Remember what Stalin said, “I don’t run the Soviet Union. 10,000 clerks do.” Of course, Putin does not personally do everything he’s responsible for. That clearly does not mean that he did not authorize it. As lethal and cold as he is, those who commit these atrocities certainly would not do so against his will.
One of the factors that assisted him in his rapid ascent from relative invisibility was the corruption that was virulent throughout Russia in the late 90′s under Yeltsin. Those in Russia who were fearful and struggling with the danger in the streets from thugs responded to Putin’s invitation to “return to the safety of tyranny” as he “cleaned up the streets and made it safe for children to go out again”.
It is in Putin’s interest to look like he has clean hands.
“The Angel of Grozny” is superb, and informative,
OK Libs, get your guard up, I am about to smear someone. ANd by that I am going to provide some information and draw a conclusion.
user “bibio44″ has made an attempt to mock Bush’s comment about Putin. The actual Bush quote is: “I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” Many times I have seen libs refer to this quote and then make fun of Bush because they believe that Bush believed Putin to be a ‘saint’. If you would actually read the quote, Bush does not make any comments on the nature of Putin’s soul.
Funny thing though, Bush proceeded to install a missle defense system in eastern Europe. So “bibio44″, what do you think Bush saw when he got a glimps of Putin’s soul?
Do you really believe that the missle defense was because Putin was a ‘saint’? Or are you just repeating another liberal lie? The foundation of all Progressive thinking.
Why am I not surprised. There are a number of dead reporters who were writing about the Chechnyans and Putin.
Can anyone say “Reichstag fire of the 21st Century”?
If you’d like to read more of Scott Anderson’s thoughts on the GQ mistreatment of his work, he’s spoken out here:
http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=Politics&articleid=a1252433514
#15 texredbud:
The full quote is:
“I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue.
“I was able to get a sense of his soul.
“He’s a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that’s the beginning of a very constructive relationship,” Mr Bush said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1392791.stm
Apparently Bush did find something good about Putin’s soul if he found he him to be “straight forward” and “trustworthy” and “deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.” Based on his record and actions, Putin is more committed to his best interests and not the Russian people. I wouldn’t put it past an ex-KGB officer to “break a few eggs to make an omelet.”
Concerning some recent commentary related to the 2nd Chechen war of the last decade:
- Russia didn’t need to create a pretext as Chechnya was clearly spiraling out of control.
- Is it so unreasonable for a Russian government agency to seek keeping confidential an anti-terrorist training operation – the manner of which might’ve been based on intelligence information regarding possible terrorist acts?
- In usage, how popular is the explosive in the mentioned FSB training exercise, that’s also said to have been later utilized in the bombing of living quarters with civilians in them?
- On the matter of conspiracy theories, the suggested “censorship” against a non-Russian article supporting Russian government involvement in the killing of civilians was perhaps done to portray the image of evil Russia’s tentacles abroad.
Meantime, the other kind of “censorship” continues to get little if any attention. At some relatively high profile English language venues, this includes one-sidedly negative articles against Nikita Mikhalkov and historically challenged anti-Russian/Ukrainian nationalist pieces.
Is it so unreasonable for a Russian government agency to seek keeping confidential an anti-terrorist training operation – the manner of which might’ve been based on intelligence information regarding possible terrorist acts?
That’s a distraction from the issue that Putin has the power to initiate a public investigation into the ’99 apt bombing. He’s a FSB guy and certainly knows where to sniff out the skeletons. But, like every high profile murderous mishap or botched rescue in Russia whether is was Beslin, the Moscow theater or Anna Politskaya’s murder nothing is ever honestly investigated or resolved.
Politskaya’s family not being dupes had denounced the second trial of her alleged assailants knowing full well that the investigation in the first trial was a sham. They understand that the real culprit is much farther up the food chain. The second trail has been put on hold.
I noticed that you have hit most of the Kremlin themed talking points.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who sees the threats from nations around the world, especially Russia. I don’t understand why people would doubt a nation that was a Communist Superpower only 20 years ago. They still retain vast sums of weapons and resources and most of the people alive during the Soviet Union’s existence, still live now and probably harbor the anit-American indoctrination they were brought up with.
Anderson has given a detailed interview to Radio Free Europe:
http://www.rferl.org/content/US_Journalist_Shocked_By_Decision_To_Censor_Putin_Article/1818296.html
Re: #22
FSB counter-terrorism matters can be reasonably considered as confidential.
As noted, the Russian government didn’t need to create a pretext for taking action in the second Chechen war of the last decade.
The Second Chechen war, led in part to 9/11, the likes of Al Midhar, Al Hazmi, Moussaoui
all were tied to that effort. and it begat
Nord Ost and Beslan. But we know well the caliber of Conde Nast, printing either libelous
garbage (which a certain essayist tried to rationalize recently) or fulsome encomiums to
others. No one seriously challenges the siloviki