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The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
Vol: 41 Issue: 5 - Saturday, February 05, 2005--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ezekiel's Colon
In November, 2001, President Bush announced the unilateral disarmament of two-thirds of America's nuclear capability, even as he introduced as his "trusted" partner, Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man he described as a "reformer" and a "friend" of the United States.
He told the assembled reporters at the Rose Garden, "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. . . I was able to get a sense of his soul."
Evidently, the president's ability to discern the innermost parts of a man's soul are somewhat less exalted than he thought.
He should have stuck with history instead of soul divination. Then he would have a better grasp of Vladimir Putin. Instead, the meeting was billed as a friendly discussion between 'Dubya' and 'Pootie-Poot'.
'Pootie-Poot' isn't what they call Putin behind his back at the Kremlin. There, he is known as the 'Grey Cardinal' -- a reference to his KGB days and the way he manipulated his way to power in the post Soviet-era.
A look at Putin's official biography speaks of somebody other than 'Pootie-poot' -- even though its only about six lines long.
Although only 52 now, Putin had been a mid-level KGB apparatchik until the KGB collapsed along with the Soviet Union in 1991, throwing him out of work.
After three years of menial jobs, in 1994, he became the advisor to the Leningrad City Council. By 1996, he was First Deputy Chairman of City Government. Putin came to the attention of Boris Yeltsin, who hired him First Deputy Presidential Business Manager later that same year.
In 1997, Putin was appointed head of the President’s Main Audit Directorate, and shortly after that presidential deputy chief of staff.
His political career puts one in mind of the main character in the Stephen King movie, The Shawshank Redemption". In the movie, an inmate is put in charge of the warden's illegal contracting kickback business.
In the end, the inmate arranges for the warden to be exposed while he pockets the warden's ill-gotten gains for himseelf.
Putin's appointment as Putin's deputy coincided with revelations of a kickback scandal involving millions of dollars, a Swiss construction company named Mabetex, Yeltsin’s two daughters and ultimately, Boris Yeltsin himself.
In mid-1998, the Grey Cardinal returned to the reborn KGB as director of the Russian Federal Security Service. While there, Putin expanded his power, combining his office with the Security Council. He was appointed first vice-prime minister August 9, 1999.
Later that same day, as news of the Yeltsin business scandal erupted, he was appointed Acting Prime Minister. Putin’s stint as head of the President’s Main Audit Directorate seems relevant to his meteoric rise to power.
(Vladimir Putin was the guy cooking the books when Yeltsin was padding his pension - a last-days example of life imitating Stephen King)
When Yeltsin got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he turned to Putin and cut himself a 'sweetheart' deal; Yeltsin would make Putin acting president, and in return, Putin would give him immunity, let him keep his some of his booty and retire quietly.
The man called ‘Pootie-Poot’ -- from obscurity to George Bush's 'soulmate' in five years.
After being elected President in March, 2000, 'Pootie-Poot' set about undoing the democratic reforms of the post Soviet decade, starting by packing the Kremlin with former KGB colleages. By March, 2000, 17 of the top 24 Kremlin jobs were filled by former KGB secret police officers.
Putin turned the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) into an ideological successor of sorts to the old KGB, ordering it to monitor the allegiance of military forces, giving Putin ideological control over the country's armed police and military services.
He put an end to local autonomy, stripping regional governors of their authority and centralizing all power in the Kremlin. He cracked down on the Russian media, taking control of Russia's three national networks.
Putin has overseen the nationalization of the oil and gas industry, the vodka production industry, and created a special 'directorate for economic crimes' to silence opponents of his nationalization efforts.
Using the Chechen war as an excuse, Putin turned Moscow into a police state following the bombing of six Muscovite apartment buildings (rumored to have been a KGB operation that Putin blamed on 'Chechen bandits').
In December, the State Duma approved President Vladimir Putin's plans to scrap gubernatorial elections and allow the president to nominate governors. Putin has also allowed an apparently politically motivated case to proceed against oil major YUKOS.
Assessment:
Since Bush peered into Putin's soul and found a trustworthy international partner, Putin has firmed up old alliances, forged new alliances, and/or cut arm sales deals with such old-line communist allies as Libya, Syria, Iran, Vietnam, North Korea, Poland, China, Cuba, India, and Nicaragua, often in violation of non-proliferation treaties with the United States.
As the administration's second term begins, the reflection in Putin's eyes looks less the the soul of 'Pootie-Poot' and more like the Russian graveyard the rest of us see in news photographs.
The appointment of Condoleeza Rice to head the State Department reflects the administration's reassessment of the Russian leader from 'Pootie-Poot' to the the 'Grey Cardinal' he had always been.
Condoleeza Rice was a Soviet specialist with Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control and a Fellow with the Hoover Institute before being appointed National Security Advisor in the first Bush term.
During the first Bush (Sr.) administration, Dr. Rice oversaw the breakup of the Soviet Union, first as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
In her first overseas tour as Secretary of State, Dr. Rice took the bully pulpit to criticize the Putin government for 'backsliding' on democracy and human rights and set the tone for the next for years of US-Russian relations.
"Obviously we have concerns ... it is important that Russia make clear to the world that it is intent on strengthening the rule of law, strengthening the role of an independent judiciary, permitting a free and independent press, of course," Rice told a news conference in Warsaw, during a stopover en route to Turkey. "These are all the basics of democracy," she added.
Despite the fact that Secretary Rice doesn't appear to share her boss's rosy 2001 assessment of 'Pootie-Poot', US efforts to put Russia's Pandora back into the box may be too little too late.
Even among genuine democracies, it is an axion of history that once having obtained power, governments are loathe to give it up for any reason short of revolution.
Writing of Russia from Babylon, 2,500 years ago, the prophet Ezekiel outlined the last days of the Russian bear, saying:
"After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them." (Ezekiel 38:8)
Look at the first sentence in that verse. The first part of it, separated by a colon, has already been fulfilled in its entirety.
The word 'visited' (paqad) means, in addition to the English understanding of a 'visitation' also means 'a calling to remembrance' -- something that took place during the first few years of the post-Soviet era.
In one instance in the early 90's the news was abuzz with the fact that the Russian Duma suspended its activities briefly to allow lawmakers to adjourn to the hall where free Russian-language New Testaments were being distributed.
Until early 1996, Russia was a fertile mission field for Christian missionaries who packed stadiums and churches with people eager for the Good News of Jesus Christ.
As Putin rose to power, Christians outside of the Russian Orthodox Church became subject to increasing official harrassment, particularly at the hands of the FSB.
Soon the period of 'visitation' was over, as the Russian state banned all non-Orthodox Christian missionary activities and expelled most foreign missionaries.
We are, chronologically, currently on the left side of Ezekiel's Colon.
To the right of Ezekiel's Colon, the prophet describes Russia's yet-future invasion of an Israel 'brought back from the sword' and 'gathered out of many people' to become a Jewish state "brought forth out of the nations".
Ezekiel speaks of an alliance between the Russian Bear (Gog-Magog) and foretells an alliance between Russia and what is modern-day Iran, together with most of what is the modern Arab Middle East and Islamic North Africa.
Vladimir Putin is carefully building that exact alliance -- especially with Iran -- a prize so valuable Putin is willing to risk arming them with nuclear weapons rather than see it slip away.
Putin has been careful to avoid referring to the Islamic character of the Chechen War. They are called 'bandits' or 'rebels' while carefully avoiding any religious linkup with Islam. That strategy gives his Muslim allies plausible deniability and keeps the arms flowing from the east and its Islamic alliances intact despite its war against the Chechens.
The ultimate alliance to the right of Ezekiel's Colon is still weak and undefined, but it is undeniably in development.
The Israel to the right of Ezekiel's Colon still doesn't "dwell safely, all of them" -- but the probability of a Palestinian State -- and at least the illusion of peace and safety for Israel -- is high before Bush completes his second term.
Ezekiel's Colon is all that separates us from that membrane of time that, once punctured through, unleashes the Great Tribulation. The Church Age is on the left side of Ezekiel's Colon. The Tribulation Period is on the other.
And somewhere during that literary pause, the Rapture of the Church! May God bless us all, and may He use each of us as He wills, until He comes for His Kingdom.
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