Hardly anybody in their right mind could have imagined that the tragic events at the Boston Marathon would be used so clumsily by American politicians to put pressure on Russia. Nevertheless, it is an obvious fact and the hearings in the US congress in April and May are evidence of this. The subject of the first of these hearings, which the US Congress Committee on International Affairs announced was linked to the bombings in Boston, sounded extremely provocative: «Islamic terrorism in Chechnya: the threat to America’s national security»…

Dana Rohrabacher, who chaired the hearings and was Reagan’s former speechwriter, was treacherously let down by his voice, which almost failed him, and he literally had to force out the question the «witnesses» were to answer: is the much talked-about «Islamic terrorism in Chechnya» a threat to the United States? After that, the former ardent denouncer of «empires of evil» announced that the Boston terror attacks had drawn the attention of Americans to Chechnya and Dagestan – regions which had been undeservedly overlooked for a long time and which Rohrabacher believed had turned into a «breeding ground for Islamic terrorism». 

The emergence of this strange debate in the US Congress, which had absolutely nothing to do with the Boston Marathon, can only be explained in one way: Washington has decided to use the events in Boston to promote its usual agenda, the point of which is to continue putting pressure on Russia. Essentially, they are trying to force Russia into the Procrustean Bed of the war against «global terrorism» which it allegedly has in common with America – the same war that cleared the way to the «Greater Middle East» for Obama’s predecessor. But unlike the policy of George W Bush, who at least formally recognised Russia’s legal right to destroy residual hotbeds of terrorism in the North Caucasus independently, it seems that Washington now no longer wants to recognise this. The propaganda message that Islam and terrorism are one and the same thing is once again being dragged out so that this rotten basis can be used to mould the idea of a «global threat» which is apparently coming from southern Russia and which only the efforts of the «international community» can combat. I believe there is good reason why the pressure cooker bombs have been called «weapons of mass destruction» in the official charge against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Such verbal finesse is just a step away from the words coming into everyday use in international law, and then there will be no need to create a cover story about chemical weapons as in Iraq or Syria to justify the «right» to military intervention – these already exist in the North Caucasus…

American policymakers have been nurturing the idea of sharing the liability for interfering in the internal affairs of other sovereign states with the European Union for a long time now. This is why extremist organisations prohibited in Russia are finding influential patrons in the countries of Europe. For example, such an outpost of support for Chechen extremists as the «Kavkaz-Center» has relocated to Finland. 

The notorious separatist Doku Umarov is ready to team up with anybody, as long as they are «against Putin». In the materials of the Jamestown Foundation, created at the end of the 1990s as an affiliated body of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, there are references to a statement by Doku Umarov in which he declares a moratorium on terrorist acts in Russia so as not to interfere with the opposition’s «fight against Putin» or give Russian law enforcement officers any more reason to step up their control over the activities of groups and individuals hostile to Russia’s political regime. 

The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya subsequently became the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus – evidently America’s interest in this part of the world had increased. This Committee, along with the Jamestown Foundation, is headed by virtually one and the same person – Glen Howard, who previously worked as a military analyst for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a major contractor to the US Department of Defense. In addition, his career history also includes the National Intelligence Council, as well as jobs with major oil operators in Central Asia and the Middle East. As the American analytical portal Right web (1) reports, both Jamestown Foundation and the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus are actively working with «Chechen dissidents». 

«The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus», states Right web, «is perhaps the only US-based organisation in which national security militarists and neoconservatives openly support an insurgent movement that is not only nationalist but also largely Islamist… Although the Committee notes its concern about human rights violations and issues of self-determination, far more attention appears to be given to simply advancing US geopolitics by weakening Russia and China.»

Once, at a symposium of military specialists in Kansas (2), Howard talked in detail about a trip he had taken to Chechnya many years before. He also talked about how Americans had studied the urban warfare techniques of Chechen and Arabic militants in situ, conducting at the request of «their friends from the naval base at Quantico» a series of interviews with field commanders in Chechnya and Dagestan, following the example of how things had been done in Afghanistan when militants were being trained to fight Soviet troops. Howard also spoke about how the international «courier system» had been set up – a system that transported money and videos from Georgia and Azerbaijan. «The couriers went back and forth». At that time, Radio Svoboda and Radio Free Europe were also broadcasting in Chechen, special information channels located in Prague. New «insurgents» have been strenuously recruited by way of these websites. And yet Doku Umarov still complained, at that time to the Americans, that there were not enough Arabs «for the struggle»… «Chechnya», said Howard, «is of key value to America, it is lines of communications, it is the Caspian Sea, it is the opportunity to transport energy resources from the Caspian Sea area alongside Georgia, Azerbaijan with the Baku-Jihan pipeline…» 

It is a pity that all these subjects were not discussed at the recent Congress hearings in April, «after Boston»…

It is possible to suppose that the provocative interpretation of events in Boston and their association with Russian Chechnya was a warning to President Obama from certain forces in America, something like – isn’t it time that the United States itself suppressed Russia, rather than shifting the «Caucasus repartition» project to countries adjoining Russia, such as Finland and Georgia?  After all, involvement in the activities of subversive centres located in Finland that have recently been losing face as a result of scandals connected with fraud, participation in crime rings or else those giving off the smell of espionage is clearly unjustified… 

(To be concluded…)