Weekly Column - 12.15.2004

RUSSIA'S CHALLENGE TO AMERICA
by J. R. Nyquist

On Monday I interviewed a former Soviet military doctor, Igor Shafhid. He is author of Inside the Red Zone, and presently works with the Department of Counter-terrorism Operations Support (CTOS) on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy. He also works as a senior medical scientist at Bechtel Nevada/Martin Lockheed. He is a graduate of the Leningrad Military Medical Academy and served in the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces. He is astonished that American officials and the American public – despite the events of 9/11 – have failed to learn the basics of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. It would seem that Americans are too busy enjoying their lives to bother with basic WMD education. The high schools of the United States are focused more on driver’s education and sex education – to the exclusion of civil defense education. The colleges tend to political correctness, so that even the best-educated people in the country have scant acquaintance with environmental or physical affects produced by nuclear or biological attacks. Knowledgeable U.S. officials, says Shafhid, have their understanding from books instead of exercises involving real radiation, chemicals or pathogens. In Russia there have been many exercises where real conditions were simulated by the presence of non-lethal chemicals that could nonetheless make you sick. Doctors themselves were even used has guinea pigs, exposed to illnesses in order to test the effectiveness of vaccinations.

According to Dr. Shafhid the USSR built its medical infrastructure around the expectation of future nuclear and biological attack. Meanwhile, in the United States, the opposite situation developed. Everything in the U.S. medical system has been constructed around everyday medical problems. No realistic thought has been given to the treatment of millions in the event of nuclear or biological attacks. The design of most U.S. hospital buildings is, therefore, unsuitable. The organization and training of U.S. medical personnel does not take into account the complexities of quarantine or the handling of mass casualties. “In emergencies,” said Shafhid, “hospitals are the first place sick people end up. A contagious outbreak of any form would collapse a hospital system within the first week without proper training procedures in place to handle a mass casualty epidemic. Today in the United States, the majority of hospitals, except for a few military hospitals, do not have the experience, training or means to deal with long-term isolations of mass numbers of highly contagious patients.”

In his book, Dr. Shafhid wrote: “Even more disturbing and mind-boggling is that in the midst of these huge WMD arsenals threatening the world, the United States of America has not yet secured its borders and built a solid civil defense system for its people. America is an unprepared nation in every respect.” He further states: “People in general are clueless of any evacuation and decontamination procedures that might be available. Borders and ports remain an open invitation to ‘come on in.’”

I asked Dr. Shafhid about the regime of Vladimir Putin in Russia. He said that Russia’s people were accustomed to dictatorship, preferring totalitarian government to freedom. He explained that all the former Soviet republics, excepting (perhaps) the Baltic States, were still controlled by totalitarian style structures. I asked Shafhid about the poisoning of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko. Shafhid had no doubts the poisoning was directed by KGB-type personnel, that the intention was not necessarily to kill Yushchenko but to dissuade him from challenging the officially anointed candidate (Viktor Yanukovich). I asked about Yushchenko’s future. Shafhid is concerned that Yushchenko may not live very long given the damage done to his internal organs by the poison. Shafhid also agreed that the Ukrainian government would be adjusted in such a way as to neutralize a Yushchenko presidency.

Shafhid’s book is not merely concerned with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs); it is concerned with weapons of mass deception and mass brainwashing. He explains that propaganda “was a huge force for mass mind control” in Soviet Russia. And it remains a problem today, because the mind-control game is still being played. “Through television movies and other media,” he said, “people were kept abreast of the awful ‘atrocities of the west.’ Fed with hate, Russians bought into the communist brainwash because they were given a promise of being a superpower nation, another Roman Empire.” The Russian people were taught to envy the United States, and envy is the most dangerous form of political hatred. “Even after the New Russian Federation came to power in 1991 there was not a change in the thinking of the majority of people toward America,” says Shafhid. “Their blind patriotism had become possessive and obsessive, bred on lies and driven by greed.” Recent polls reveal that 60 percent of Russians agree with the terrorist logic behind the 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. It is a simple case of mental programming. “Russian citizens did not stop hating Americans when the Iron Curtain was demolished,” Shafhid warned. “Mind-altering techniques are effective and not easy to unravel.”

Today the Russian leadership continues to promote anti-American propaganda. Russia is building new strategic weapons and a military alliance with China. Russia is also developing what Shafhid calls a “psychotronic weapon.” It is a computerized acoustic-type device, “capable of implanting thoughts into a person’s mind without that person being aware of the source of the thought.” This may be hard to believe, but Shafhid says such weapons were tested “against civilians during the Afghanistan conflict, and they are documented to be a positive approach in strengthening a nation’s own military.”

On Dec. 12 the Washington Post ran a story by Peter Baker, titled “Russian President Turns on Washington Over Ukraine.” (Page A24.) According to Baker’s sources, President Bush is rethinking his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Already this relationship is “strained” because Putin has been systematically building a dictatorial regime. And now, with revelations that pro-reformist presidential candidate Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin, the sinister manipulations and dreadful intimidation of Moscow’s agents in Eastern Europe are plain for all to see. Add to this what Baker calls “an angry torrent of Cold War-style rhetoric from Moscow” and you have a situation the U.S. president can hardly ignore. The Iraq situation is nothing compared to recent storm warnings out of Moscow. In terms of consistency and credibility, President Bush cannot successfully support freedom in Iraq while appeasing Putin’s dictatorial ambitions in Eastern Europe.

Russia is the motherland of anti-American propaganda and mind control. But Baker’s sources say that President Bush still “likes Putin and worries that it would be counterproductive to confront the Russian too publicly.” And there the matter stands. Russia is a country run by people who hate the United States, whatever they pretend to the contrary. The president of the United States is afraid to accept this fact, unwisely hoping for a change – a change that didn’t even occur when its occurrence was trumpeted in 1991. No fact could be more significant than Russia’s enmity, since Russia has several thousand strategic nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Worrying about North Korea’s three to six atomic weapons or Iran’s nuclear ambitions is like fretting over a small spill when you are threatened with a flood. The WMD cat was let out of the bag decades ago when Russia developed nuclear and biological weapons, and built WMD stockpiles on an unprecedented scale. Next year Russia will hold joint military exercises with China. “We want … to promote the development of the two countries’ strategic collaborative relationship,” the Chinese president told the Russian defense minister recently. What is the purpose of this military collaboration? Against what enemy is it envisioned?

As noted by Dr. Shafhid, Russia is the motherland of anti-American hate propaganda. Russia also supports Iran’s nuclear program and China’s military buildup. If we look at the sour propaganda of the far left – in Europe, Latin America and the U.S. itself, we find a definite pattern. As Dr. Shafhid explained in his book, “We were taught not to ask questions, but to work to protect our nation against the evils of capitalism. Revenge was our goal. We bought into the lies that life on the other side of the Iron Curtain had to be destroyed, at all costs, even if it meant risking our lives to do so.”

This teaching has not disappeared.

© 2004 Jeffrey R. Nyquist
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