Lib-Dem leader in 'ethnic' campaign call

The Head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia has called on ethnic Russians to vote for him. He also accused the US of exploiting Russia and the whole world, saying US special services were behind the 9/11 attacks.

Speaking in his trademark demagogic manner, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), Vladimir Zhirinovsky, told a party congress on Tuesday that their primary goal was to protect the rights of ethnic Russians. Zhirinovsky accused various forces – from the current Russian authorities, to liberal reformers of the 1990s, to agents of foreign governments – of conducting an elaborate policy aimed at the exploitation and even destruction of the Russian people. The LDPR leader said that the current state of the Russian society is not entirely democratic and not entirely free, but rather, as he put it, a “hermaphrodite state”. “We have neither private property, nor public, neither freedom, nor serfdom,” he said, adding that hermaphrodites cannot produce offspring and thus have no future.In the past, Zhirinovsky has suggested that Russian men be able to legally marry more than one wife in order to address Russia’s deteriorating demographic situation.He also said that the current attempts to build an interstate block on the basis of CIS and the CSTO were also doomed to fail for the same reason – lack of resolution and clarity. Zhirinovsky said that former Soviet republics must join the Russian Federation as federal districts.The Russian politician, however, did not confine himself to domestic topics. Indeed, the firebrand politician took aim at the United States, saying that the 9/11 attacks were a “provocation” staged by the US special services. He then listed many of the same arguments used by conspiracy theorists to prove his point: “What sort of a terrorist would strike at 8-30 AM, when there is no one in the offices besides janitors,” he asked. “Why didn’t they order the air force to shoot down the hijacked planes?” He then questioned the ways the towers dropped to the ground in free-fall speed, which some experts say prove that something else besides fire was responsible for being down the skyscrapers. “Two towers crashed onto their foundation in almost no time. This could only happen if it was a prepared demolition, if there were explosives planted on all floors,” he said.Finally, Zhirinovsky asked why the hole in the Pentagon “was smaller than the aircraft that allegedly crashed into it.”The LDPR leader added that if he does not get answers to these questions, he will consider the 9/11 terrorist attacks “a provocation”.

Zhirinovsky also said that he will run for president in the forthcoming elections and will officially propose his candidacy at the 24th LDPR Congress on December 13. Zhirinovsky also announced that Valery Budanov will run for the Lower House on the LDPR party ticket. Budanov, a little-known lawyer, is the son of the ex-army colonel and nationalist icon Yuri Budanov who was shot dead in Moscow in June this year after serving a prison sentence for kidnapping and strangling a Chechen teenager  while on a combat mission in Chechnya in 2000.“Yes, Valery Yurievich Budanov is on our list. I bid his father the last farewell. I think we must support the family for it is a great grief to lose one’s father,” Zhirinovsky said. “We must pay attention to the military, as much as we can. This is not only about housing, this is also attention to families,” the politician said. In comments to RT, Valery Budanov said that he saw the fate of the military as the most urgent challenge Russia is facing. Professional military servicemen are not protected by the state in ordinary life and have to solve numerous social problems, and those who return from combat in various “hot spots” suffer even more because they struggle to adjust to civilian life.In an interview with RT following the LDPR congress, Zhirinovsky said that in 2001 he was the first to raise questions about the terror attacks of 9/11 during a visit to Ottawa, Canada.The Russian politician repeated his questions, which he says are being ignored by the international community:“Why were the WTC towers insured just over one month before the attacks? Why was the strike delivered so early, when there were so few people in the offices? Why were TV cameras already pointed at the towers when the aircraft hit them? Why did the towers fall straight down into their foundations, like dominos or pyramids? Why was the Pentagon hit on the right wing that housed archives and not on the left wing where the Defense Secretary’s office is located? Why was the hole in the Pentagon smaller than the plane that made it, and why was the plane never found? Why were no fighter aircraft launched when the hijacked aircraft went off their prescribed routes?”“We mourn the victims of the attacks and the American people are not to blame for this, but the attacks were most likely ordered, organized and executed by certain agencies of the United States,” Zhirinovsky said.The LDPR leader claims he was the first to ask these questions only two months after the terrorist attacks. He says the questions remain unanswered, and the whole world “remains silent to this day.”Meanwhile, speaking on the recent death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Zhirinovsky said that US Special Forces continue to keep their own people, as well as the international community in the dark concerning their actions.“What happened to Bin Laden? Where is his body? They got rid of it and there is no body, but this is because they never had it – Bin laden died a long time ago and of natural causes. They were deceiving us for five or six years saying that he was alive and releasing his addresses,” he said. “This is monstrous. Lies mounted on top of lies,” the firebrand LDPR leader concluded.