Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Jihadi warriors, mujahideen, in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, prior to and during the military intervention by the USSR in support of its client, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
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Putin studied law at the Saint Petersburg State University in 1970 and graduated in 1975.[6] His thesis was on "The Most Favored Nation Trading Principle in International Law".
In 1975, Putin joined the KGB, … after 15 years with the KGB working on international economic affairs …
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Not long after the CIA and Saudi Intelligence-financed Mujahideen had devastated Afghanistan at the end of the 1980’s, forcing the exit of the Soviet Army in 1989, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself some months later, the CIA began to look at possible places in the collapsing Soviet Union where their trained “Afghan Arabs” could be redeployed to further destabilize Russian influence over the post-Soviet Eurasian space.
They were called Afghan Arabs because they had been recruited from ultraconservative Wahhabite Sunni Muslims from Saudi Arabia, the Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Arab world where the ultra-strict Wahhabite Islam was practiced. They were brought to Afghanistan in the early 1980’s by a Saudi CIA recruit who had been sent to Afghanistan named Osama bin Laden.
(While circumnavigating the Arabian peninsula for CONTEL and ARAMCO in 1993 I happened to meet one such Mujahadin in Khamis Mushat and learned that not only were all the roads I had been driving on built by the the Saudi Bin Laden Group founded by Osama’s dad and based in Wahhabite Jeddah, like Exxon Mobile, those are all international businesses whose profits exceed the GNP of most countries.)
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Mecca is being torn down and rebuilt as hotels and convention centers for tourists looking to have all the crude esthetic beauty of the Syncrude wasteland.
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In May 1990, Putin was appointed as an advisor on international affairs to Mayor Sobchak. On 28 June 1991, he became head of the Committee for External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office, with responsibility for promoting international relations and foreign investments[49] and registering business ventures.
After the collapse of the Communist East German government, Putin returned to Saint Petersburg, where in June 1991, he worked with the International Affairs section of Saint Petersburg State University, reporting to Vice-Rector Yuriy Molchanov.[41]
There, he looked for new KGB recruits, watched the student body, and renewed his friendship with his former professor, Anatoly Sobchak, the Mayor of Saint Petersburg.[45]
Putin resigned with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on 20 August 1991,[45] on the second day of 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.[46]
Putin said: "As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on", although he also noted that the choice was hard because he had spent the best part of his life with "the organs".[47]
December 1991.[38] Putin met Anatoly Sobchak, an Assistant Professor who taught business law (khozyaystvennoye pravo), and was influential in Putin's career.[39]
On 27 June 1997, at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, guided by rector Vladimir Litvinenko, Putin defended his Candidate of Science dissertation in economics, titled "The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations"
On 9 August 1999, Putin was appointed one of three First Deputy Prime Ministers, and later on that day was appointed acting Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation by President Yeltsin.[62] Yeltsin also announced that he wanted to see Putin as his successor. Still later on that same day, Putin agreed to run for the presidency.[63]
On 16 August, the State Duma approved his appointment as Prime Minister with 233 votes in favour (vs. 84 against, 17 abstained),[64] while a simple majority of 226 was required, making him Russia's fifth PM in fewer than eighteen months
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Exxon Mobile has had ongoing operations in Russia for 20 years under Tillerson, and is now pursuing joint ventures with Putin and his organized crime family the FSB in the arctic without all the bothersome environmental regulations US companies have had to deal with.
Tillerson’s ties with Putin. One of the enormous deals that Vladimir Putin and Rex Tillerson worked on was a $500 billion oil exploration partnership between Exxon and the Russian government’s oil company, Rosneft. The Obama administration blocked the deal when it imposed sanctions against Russia for its intervention in the Ukraine. In a recent column for ThinkProgress titled "Trump, Putin, and ExxonMobil team up to destroy the planet," Joe Romm, founding editor of Climate Progress, writes, "This deal could explain why Putin appears to have interfered in U.S. elections in favor of a Trump victory."
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Mafia State: The term has been used by some Western media to describe the political system in Russia under Vladimir Putin's rule.[14][15][16] This characterization came to prominence following the United States diplomatic cables leak, which revealed that US diplomats viewed Russia as "a corrupt, autocratic kleptocracy centred on the leadership of Vladimir Putin, in which officials, oligarchs and organised crime are bound together to create a 'virtual mafia state.'"[17][18] In his book titled Mafia State, journalist and author
Luke Harding argues that Putin has "created a state peopled by ex-KGB and FSB officers, like himself, [who are] bent on making money above all."[19] In the estimation of American diplomats, "the government [of Russia] {and an illegitimate Trump} effectively [is] the mafia."[20][21][22]
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Food for thought...