IN 2011, European Court of Human Rights ruled that while some of his right were violated, fundamentally Khodorkovsky had not been condemned unfairly. In other words, if he was not sentenced for political reasons, he was sentenced for a crime and that, last time I checked, makes Khodorkovsky a convicted criminal.
Why is it then that from the White House, to Baroness Ashton, to nearly all the European and US elites – everybody is celebrating? Why this sympathy for a justly convicted criminal?
What the hell is wrong with you guys?!
Do you realize that this attitude makes you look like you are in cahoots with a criminal oligarch?
The Saker
“European and US elites – everybody is celebrating? Why this sympathy for a justly convicted criminal?”
He is one of them. The criminal sociopathic tribe that help loot Russia.
Did you see this article?
http://rt.com/news/khodorkovsky-alexander-rahr-interview-621/
How repulsive, and what an insult to Solzhenitsyn (one of my favorite writers and philosophers).
Anyway, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Khodorkovsky release, and I’d sure like to hear your views, Saker.
Sometimes Putin does things that confuse me at first, then later (usually after I’ve grown tired of worrying about it and moved off to do other things) I suddenly see the sheer brilliance of the maneuver. I’m getting used to this now
And what is the brilliance I see in Putin’s choice to let the Khodorkovsky creep out of prison early? Well….
Khodorkovsky was going to be released anyway, in less than a year’s time. All during his incarceration, he’s been reveling in this fantasy he has that he’s some kind of shining light of humanity, cruelly imprisoned by the evil tyrant Putin. Absurd yes, but he seems to really believe this, and he’s got a fan club in the neo-con New World Order crowd. I think he’s all along had plans that, upon his release, he’d be the darling of the talk shows and probably write books too- and probably a movie about his life as a long-suffering savior. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Khodorkovsky was planning to starve himself a bit and punch himself in the face a few times prior to his scheduled release next year, just for dramatic effect.
Putin just short-circuited all that. It will be awkward now, for Khodorkovsky and his allies, to dance around the fact that Putin let him out early- well fed and unharmed.
I have also thought of another possible reason for Putin doing this.
As much as the Western propaganda likes to portray Putin as a cloak and dagger KGB killer, from my understanding, most of Putin’s training and experience was more along the lines of police work. Sometimes, when the police are trying to break up a complex criminal operation, they will arrange an early prison release for some member of the criminal gang who’s been sidelined for a few years, in order to spark some turf wars and in-fighting when the guy tries to get back in the game.
Anyway, these are some of my latest ramblings on the subject, but I still have more questions than answers:
What’s the German involvement here? From the sound of it, the German government is in deep with Khodorkovsky- for what purpose?
Do you think Khodorkovsky still has any money left? The rest of the thieves would have been “managing” it while he was away, and thieves will be thieves.
@Sky: How repulsive, and what an insult to Solzhenitsyn (one of my favorite writers and philosophers).
SAME HERE!! I have the deepest of admiration bordering on awe for Alexander Solzhenitsyn and to hear that bag of shit comparing himself to that greatest of all 20th century authors and philosophers is absolutely revolting.
To make things worse for me, I knew Sasha Rahr in my past life and I am very sad to see whom he has associated himself with.
Sometimes Putin does things that confuse me at first, then later (usually after I’ve grown tired of worrying about it and moved off to do other things) I suddenly see the sheer brilliance of the maneuver. I’m getting used to this now
Are you reading my thoughts? :-)
The same thought has come to me many times, but keep in mind that Putin has much more info when he makes a decision then we do when we hear about it. So this is normal. But yeah, its also uncanny and very nice at the same time.
most of Putin’s training and experience was more along the lines of police work.
No. He was a foreign intelligence officer.
Do you think Khodorkovsky still has any money left?
Oh sure, but not as much as before and, more importantly, Russia has changed. Khodorkovsky almost succeeded in literally buying the whole Duma – now this is quite impossible.
Let me use an image to explain: the virus (Khodorkovsky) has not changed much, its the body’s immune system (Putin) which has changed and can no easily deal with the virus. Under Eltsin Russia was “immune suppressed”. Does that make sense?
Cheers,
The Saker
Thanks for setting me straight on Putin’s background.
Reading RT a little more, I found a good op-ed piece:
http://rt.com/op-edge/khodorkovsky-pardon-myths-putin-620/
The only question I have about this editorial is the remark about Russia’s poor human rights record. Sure, there was a time… but not now. The US human rights record is far, far worse these days. Why do even positive articles about Russian affairs feel the need to slide in this apology anymore?
@Sky: Russia’s human rights record.
Ok, here we have to separate two different levels.
On the level of the Federal authorities (Putin, Medvedev, the government, the Presidential administrations, the Ministries, the Kremlin, etc,) the record on human rights is actually very good. All that talk about Putin ordering the murder of Litvinenko, Yushchenko, Politkovskaia, Magnitsky is all 100% bullshit. The only person whose assassination Putin did, indeed, order, was the terrorist Khattab, and that the Russians never denied. So that is level one.
One the second level, there is the reality of what happens every day in Russia. The cops are corrupt. The prison administration is also corrupt. The local officials are corrupt. And the judges are the most corrupt of all. This is a real nightmare which is a direct result of the Soviet and Eltsin era and which even got *worse* under Putin (in particular for the prison administration authorities). On that lower daily level the situation in Russia is quite appalling, that is true. If you are rich, if you have connections, you will be doing fine. If you don’t, you are in a terrible condition. One example: last I heard the conviction rate of Russian courts is 99.7%. But you can *literally* buy somebody of of jail. That is how bad it is.
Putin does not need that all at all, in fact he tries really hard to fight it. I cannot go into all the details but I assure you that the Kremlin tries very hard, but it is also very hard to fight the lower level corruption *without* using Stalin-like methods. This is really important – if Putin was a dictator he could solve that problem really fast, but he is not a dictator and so he has to act within the limits of the law, and that is very very very hard to do in Russia, even for the President. The good news is that at least in the big cities the civil society is getting really fed up. Russian travel abroad in the millions and they wonder why French or German cops don’t act like Russian cops do or why in Europe the courts do not have a 99.7% conviction rate. And they are fighting back, as is the media, by the way. So there is a push-back from society and there is a determined effort by the Kremlin, but that will be a long long battle, decades. It might also take a change of generation.
So yes, alas, on a daily level the human right record of Russia still is very bad.
HTH, cheers!
The Saker
@why everybody is celebrating…
Could it be because Kh. is a (half)Jew? And when one of them falls into the hands of the Gentile justice, no effort should be spared to salvage him.
WizOz
“Do you realize that this attitude makes you look like you are in cahoots with a criminal oligarch?”
They are, and an actual reporter would know about and refer to the ECHR’s rulings.
However, the people working the Anglosphere media are typists, not reporters, and so merely write down what their oligarchic masters tell them. As do Anglosphere politicians, by the way.
It’s the Anglosphere oligarchy who were in cahoots with Khodorkovsky, and who look at his improsonment as intolerable.
After all, what if the idea that an oligarch can be jailed for tax fraud gained currency in the Anglosphere??
At least lot of people show thier true colors.
It’s a shame nobody mentions the Beslan school massacre. It was precisely revenge on Putin for Khodorkovsky arrest and the renationalization of his stolen oil company Yukos. They couldn’t bear such a loss, particularly because Yukos was an inch away from being in their total possession. The massacre was carried out from Qatar, most likely by the Mossad because their asset, Politkovskaya, was in a direct contact via phone with the ghouls who captured the school. Just remember the drooling of the Zionist media in the West at that time whose main message was much too obvious: “Putin, we got you! What are you going to do now? Why don’t you talk to them?”
I’d appreciate if anybody knows more about this to tell us the whole story. BTW, after realizing that such stunts actually make Putin stronger, they gave up on the strategy. Oh how offended the Zionist media were when the Alpha forces took over the Moscow Theater and “only” 119 people died.