Well, that didn’t take long, did it? That last piece was no sooner published than Americans, from high officials to talking heads, told us that Putin did it. That wily man who has NATO doing pretzel turns trying to show they’re bigger and tougher than Russia was totally stupid on that one day. He killed somebody of no threat to him thereby turning him into a threat, in particular by having the deed carried out right there under his nose at the Kremlin. The only stupider thing he could have done would be to plant the body in his own office and have red arrows painted leading the public to his doorstep. Unfortunately, the real culprits couldn’t get in there.
In fact this killing was a deep, dark deed, but I would bet my pension Mr. Putin was the true intended victim, and not the hapless Mr. Nemtsov. My betting is that the plot was cooked in Ukraine; some Russians like the east Ukrainians for the job, I rather lean to the west Ukrainians and their east European NATO pals myself. Either one of them would have as much ease of access in Moscow as any Russian, being undetectable unless they try to pronounce hard g’s. Some Russians argue it was the hard-core criminal element that Russia squeezed out of the fighting in Ukraine that was getting even with Putin by killing Nemtsov. That’s sounds a tad sophisticated for leaders of car-theft rings, and I don’t need to outline the reasons to suspect west Ukraine. I understand that Victoria Nuland, the Empress of West Ukraine and a State Department Bigwig pretty much drew Congress a picture to show them that Putin was ultimately responsible for the murder of her dear friend Boris Nemtsov, whom she described as a hero. (He was actually a professional “oppositionist,” not somebody with a plan of his own. He was like a theater critic, only his bailiwick was the Russian State. He became such when Yeltsin passed him over to anoint Putin his successor. Having been rejected, he refused to participate in the new government. He thus became a remnant of his former glorious self, but was nevertheless a good guy and a decent man with a commitment to opposition.)
I was listening to the tv news and was amazed to note that not a single talking head had anything to say other than “it is obvious Putin did it.” The least vitriolic say Putin created an atmosphere of hate that facilitated the crime. But then, I think to myself, Obama’s race-baiting and incessant incitement of class envy also have created an atmosphere of rancor and hate in the US. And that rancor and hate has resulted in things like knock-out gangs aimed at whites, and young black kids shoving their way into police cars to pound on a cop — and to deaths like that of Trayvon Martin. Yet I don’t hear the US media waging a campaign against Obama for creating a climate of hate leading to violence — certainly not the State Media like NBC and ABC and CBS and PBS, ad nauseum. So what’s the deal? Is it a crime to create a climate of hate, even if you think you’re justified and if so, how come only some people get called on it?
Happily for Washington, you can twist any set of facts to suit your purpose, and Ms. Nuland is not letting a good crisis go to waste. She is working over-time to depict Putin as a foe that we can only defeat by bringing Ukraine into NATO and the EU, and what helps more than the suggestion that a Stalin-like purge is in the offing or that Stalin has come to life in Moscow? Nuland even went so far as to suggest that Ukraine was absolutely central to US plans for Europe. Wow. Ukraine started out as the birthplace of Russia, but now it is absolutely vital for the US to have it in its own anti-Russian military bloc? You can see how that is going to end up. If you have kids of military age, I’d be worrying about that draft coming back. Although in the end it will be everybody paying, not just the kids.
In any case, a passel of Chechens is under arrest in Moscow, but that doesn’t mean it has a thing to do with Chechnya and its own problems. The head of Chechnya, a Chechnyan terrorist at one time and now the chief honcho in this Caucasus paradise (where there is oil), has boys fighting on the east Ukrainian side (and the west Ukrainian side). They might not have appreciated Nemtsov’s pro-Kiev stance on Ukraine, but again — this is a message to Putin from somebody.
I have a little prediction — Putin will get to the bottom of who did the killings, because he knows stirring up domestic problems in Russia was the goal and the strategic objective: regime change. I also predict that when he knows who was behind it, that person/persons/countries would be well advised to be on the alert. The best strategist doesn’t always respond directly, but from another sector and in a place of his own choosing. He certainly doesn’t attack on his own doorstep, however.
Now on to brighter things: the Republican Party! Just joking. What a mess the top dogs are making of things in Congress. Can you believe it was only weeks ago that everybody was pontificating: “The GOP is going to have to work really hard and fast to convince the voters they’re serious if they want to be in contention in 2016”? Working fast? Try “at all.” These guys are playing for the away team. McConnell is a disaster. After breaking all the promises to voters he posts a picture showing how tough he and his colleagues are gonna be on Iran because it is a matter of strategic objectives. My response was, great, you get “strategic objectives.” Getting the Republicans in control in both houses was one, and so was “and then gutting every anti-constitutional measure the Dems have enacted since Obama took office.” We got part one, and if we don’t get part two, Mr. McConnell is never going to see the inside of the Senate again except as a tourist.
I am seriously aghast at the state of the nation. We have an anti-democratic President waging a burgeoning number of wars around the globe for “democracy” and with no visible success. Every one of these places wants the US to bomb for them. Think about it. That is what the US has become. The world’s armorer and bomber.
If you wonder how somebody who grew up so in love with the idea of America and freedom and the independence of the individual could become so harsh a critic, it is only because if you go to bed with Marilyn Monroe, you don’t want to wake up with Sylvester Stallone’s mother. And in fact our country has undergone incredible changes in its international behavior in the past twenty years. As somebody who analyzes everything, I can’t not analyze our own actions, and I see a country that has lost its way and its humility in the process of becoming The World’s Only Superpower. They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think we are no exception, it’s a process, but it is underway. And it is visible both in our domestic governance, where those in office are contemptuous of the voters and the laws, and in our international behavior, where we routinely break international law citing one justification or another, and then scream bloody murder when others use our precedents to their own advantage.
I’d like to go back to that fantastic time when America believed in itself and had a reason to. But right now, I wonder if I’ll be dead before the bombs go off. That would be nice, if Anybody is listening.
