From Iran to Venezuela,  Mr. Sharp has been identified as a threat to freedom bashing rulers who accuse him of promoting non-violent techniques that are a threat to their strong armed tactics.

Mr. Sharp is guility of this charge. While he is not a swashbuckling adventurer his powerful weapons are ideas and informaion. From Dictatorship To Democracy is a handbook that has been used by dissidents in Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Ukraine and many more countries.

Mr. Sharp's success demonstrates that one person can make a big difference.

Coverage of the conversation can be found here, here, here.

Thanks to the Heritage Foundation for making this informative call happen.

What follows is an internal memo from experts at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Radio Liberty has reporters on the ground throughout the region including Georgia and Russia. The memo about Russia's intentions, written today:

Subject: Is Moscow indeed sincere about the war?
 
Russian officials, as well as pro-government media has kept talking about the perfidious attack by Georgians on South Ossetia, to make the public believe that the only aggressor in conflict is Georgia itself and to put Russia in a better tactical position. But number of facts hint that the Russian leadership has been long preparing for or, at least, anticipating a bigger military conflict in Caucasus this summer.
 
 * In mid-July a major military exercise "Kavkaz 2008" was conducted by Russian defense ministry in Southern federal district, which also included the area where latest fighting took place. Moreover, 58th army (which was the main force in South Ossetia crisis from Russian side) was center-staged in this maneuvers.
 
 * Few months ago Russia sent military rail-road units to repair communications in Abkhazia. Moscow claimed that they were purely on humanitarian basis to help the civilian population. Those troops later left but the real military used the railroad to invade Abkhazia as conflict in South Ossetia started. Matthew Bryza,  the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, cited that fact August 11 in Tbilisi: "We heard statements that the Russian railroad troops that had entered Abkhazia a couple of months ago were there on a humanitarian mission. And now we know the truth about why those forces were there. It was to rebuild the railroad to allow ammunition and other military supplies to aid a Russian invasion."
 
 * On August 12, Tatarstan official news agency reported the death of 22 year old contractee Yevgeni Parfenov from Kazan, who was killed in South Ossetia fighting. He served with 22 brigade of GRU's (Russian military intelligence) special forces, stationed in town of Botaysk, Rostov region. First his name was on the list of killed peacekeepers, but GRU troops are different and they weren't meant to be present in conflict zone.
 
 * The way and the energy, how Russian public opinion is manipulated, the extent the official media, first of all TV, brought the level of mass hysteria to unprecedented scale shows that Moscow made respected preparations for propagandistic support of the war long ahead.
 
* Russian military expert Pavel Felgenhauer told the N.Caucasus Service of RFERL that Russia began to prepare an invasion of Georgia in April this year. The ultimate goal of the operation is regime change, according to the analyst. Prominent opposition leader, former presidential advisor Illarionov thinks that  "the war was a spectacular provocation that had been long prepared and successfully executed by the Russian siloviki -- those in government with connections to the military and security organs -- that almost entirely repeats in another theater at another time the "incursion of Basayev into Daghestan" and the beginning of the second Chechnya war in 1999".

Previously, the Russians publicly demanded that Georgia's President be sacked. I guess the world should have taken that as a sign they had an aggressive agenda.

Michael Ledeen has an insightful analysis at National Review.

Veritas Rex has good short analysis of why communist systems can not tolerate religious freedom. 

Photographs of Anna Politkovskaya courageously taking on Putin and the Putinized Russian State.

Kudos to  Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty for keeping Anna's story and fight in the public eye.

Kim Zigfeld has important information about Putin's propoanda machine at Pajamas Media. 

Robert Amsterdam has link to video interview with Anna.

Blogs are covering this story: Down Load Squad, Switched,  Mashable, Tech Crunch, and a Feed Is Born.

While bloggers are covering this important story the Main Stream Media is largely ignoring it, as it does most every anti-freedom move made by the Chinese government.

Just in the last few weeks, China refused to pressure the Burma junta to stop its violent repression of dissidents and it successfully stopped the International community from pressuring the Burmese government.

Now it is tightening repressive policies against citizens and there is no condemnation by the international community.

If China pays no price for these actions it will continue to do employ such tactics.

Sign the caseforfreedom petition so we can keep you informed on how you can be part of the movement to free the Chinese people and oppressed people everywhere. 

Anna's important, posthumously published,  memoir A Russian Diary should be read by all.

Some more blogs in tribute to Anna: here, here, here .

Update: The politcs behind Anna's murder and more on Anna from Open Democracy. 

PRAGUE, September 20, 2007 (RFE/RL) --
 

RFE/RL: Can you tell us a bit more about why you went to Iran and whether you suspected that you might face difficulties in doing so, given Tehran’s opposition to your employer, Radio Farda, the Persian-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the tensions in general between Washington and Tehran?

Azima: I was almost sure that I would be in trouble but I thought that, I mean, in the end I decided to go because otherwise maybe my mother wouldn't be alive. That is the truth. According to her doctors, they told me that they had no hope that she would recover and then suddenly at the hospital they found that she had changed and she told them 'do you know that my daughter is here?' I think it was very important. Before I entered the country she had been in a  coma but when I entered Iran she was in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) for the third time because she had an embolism in her lung and also in her leg and her doctor told me that she could face a very difficult situation.

RFE/RL: Once you were in Iran, how did you cope with the stress of suddenly no longer being in control of your own fate?

Azima: I was with my Mom, and many people as well as her doctor told me that my presence there was very good for her health and for her recovery. But there were bad sides as I was feeling that I am constantly under (security) control but maybe it was not like that, I don't know. But I had that feeling, especially during the first two or three months, and then I tried to convince myself that I can’t go on like this, so I tried to just ignore things, and I found that others, my friends and all the others that I knew in Iran were doing the same thing. They felt that maybe they are under control but they ignored it and they continued their ordinary life.

RFE/RL: Now that you are out, has the experience left you somewhat traumatized?

Azima: I don't want to say yes, but I think I am. Because I don't want to give in, or give up. My time in Iran, as I told you, I had good times but also I had bad times. For example, I didn't write anything, or I didn't keep anything in written form because I was all the time thinking that maybe they would again come to my house and make a house search. You never know what will happen.So that is why maybe I am traumatized.