Following the largest anti-Kremlin protests since the alleged collapse of communism, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of orchestrating the activities of the Russian dissident movement.  In televised remarks on December 8, the former KGB colonel accused Hillary Clinton and the United States government of funding the protests and suggested that the Western powers sent a "signal" to their undercover agents to begin active measures against the country.

"They heard this signal and with the support of the U.S. State Department began their active work," said the KGB man.  "The [U.S.] secretary of state was quick to evaluate the elections, saying that they are unfair and unjust, even before she received materials from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) observers."  He went on to remind the world that Russia is a nuclear power, and he also claimed that the U.S. was "shaking" things up to show the world who is boss in world affairs.

All too quick to wave the Kremlin banner, Alex Jones' Prison Planet has released a flurry of articles supporting Putin's charges by attempting to link the protests with the alleged nefarious involvement of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).  Strategically, they have begun focusing their attention on prominent Russian blogger and attorney Alexey Navalny, whom they accuse of being the prime orchestrator of the over 50,000-strong Russian street protests against fraudulent election returns.  Prison Planet writers have linked him with an activist group known as Democratic Alternate (DA!), which they describe as a "[NED] fund recipient, meaning that Alexey Navalny is an agent of US-funded sedition and willfully hiding it from his followers."

The NED itself, according to Prison Planet writers, is run by "Neo-Conservative, corporate-fascists who have signed PNAC documents declaring their intentions of acheiving [sic] and maintaining a century of global hegemony."  The NED, they say, receives its funding from the U.S. government and operates around the world inspiring U.S.-controlled revolutions such as the "Arab Spring."  Of course, behind it all are the nefarious NWO masters, who, among other things, also used the CIA to create al-Qaeda to carry out false-flag attacks against the United States (so goes the Alex Jones thesis).

The NED, according to its website, is a private, non-profit, bipartisan foundation that provides grants to over a thousand non-government groups across the world.  Their primary mission is to promote democracy and social reform in the 90 or so countries where NED grants are approved and sent.  While it does receive appropriations from Congress, the NED itself purports to be privately led and highly transparent.  The NED contributes to 52 different non-government humanitarian and educational groups in Russia, ranging from organizations monitoring government response in handling natural disasters to non-partisan groups dedicated to ensuring free and fair elections.  The average grant amount awarded to organizations is about $54,000, with the grants ranging from lows of $20,000 to a high of about $135,000.  Total contributions to independent, non-government organizations in Russia are $2,783,994.  DA!, the subject of Alex Jones' ire, was not listed on the NED's 2010 annual report.  Similar organizations to DA!, however, tended to receive funds within the 20K-30K range.

In comparison, deep-cover SVR agents such as Vicky Pelaez and her Russian husband (a part of the "Ghost Stories" spy ring exposed by the FBI in 2010), for example, were detected by the FBI receiving payments from their SVR controllers in excess of $80,000.  Members of this spy ring were also provided funds for houses and other "expenses" needed to establish their cover, improve their careers, and infiltrate U.S. institutions in search of information, recruits, and willing contacts.  These same agents were also heavily trained and educated in counterintelligence techniques, foreign languages, and in methods and skills necessary to manage their own secret projects.  A review of the declassified FBI documents on this matter reveal that these "Illegals" were far more serious in their business than the media was able to comprehend.

Pelaez was in the same business as Alex Jones; she was an investigative reporter and editor of a far-left Spanish newspaper in the United States.  She trafficked in extreme pro-communist propaganda, often accusing the United States of pursuing an imperialist policy and instigating terrorism in South America and across the world.  Every act of terrorism committed by FARC or other leftist guerrillas was interpreted by Pelaez as a reaction to the brutal imperialism imposed on those countries by the United States.  A review of her available written works shows that her opinions on U.S. foreign policy are extraordinarily similar in content and language to the collective works of Alex Jones and his employees.  Interestingly, Pelaez, who now works for The Moscow News, is also supporting Putin and accusing the United States of manipulating the Russian public.

Compared to the United States, Russian propaganda agents are far better compensated than their U.S. counterparts.  Not only do we keep records of how much each front organization receives in grants, but such grants are given to groups of people who must split their CIA money, averaging 54K, amongst each neo-con, corporate fascist conspirator.

The difference between alleged and actual "active measures" and provocateurs is profound, especially in Russia, where disinformation was brought to the level of an art form under the KGB and Communist party.  The Soviet System, despite its alleged demise, is still alive and well in Russia, where journalists and dissidents conveniently commit suicide from time to time and old lies are exchanged for new ones as the body of the country falls farther into mediocrity and decay.  Russia Today, the Kremlin-controlled news organization, often features Alex Jones and other such malcontents in its daily programming.  If we were to use Prison Planet standards, this by itself would be sufficient evidence of Russian infiltration of their organization.

We must consider the benefits our friends in the Kremlin receive from the promotion of Alex Jones-type conspiracy theories.  The creation of a Faux Right-Wing movement can help Russian/Chinese goals in many ways.  It can spread communist propaganda while at the same time fronting itself as anti-communist; it can train individuals to be reflexively anti-American throughout every tragedy, constantly ready and willing to blame the American government for everything that goes wrong; it further ideologically disarms the United States, making it unable to resist Russian/Chinese objectives; and, best of all, it further spreads a climate of fear, envy, hate, and distrust in a country already torn apart between "left" and "right."  It is high time we pointed a spotlight on the real provocateurs and propagandists in this country.