Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 30 -- Like a dose of
plutonium, the “moral idiotism” of Valdiimir Putin has succeeded in infecting
all of Russia with a pathology it won’t be able to escape even after his
departure and has already “transformed his regime and himself personally into
the number one problem for the entire world,”
according to Igor Yakovenko.
And also like plutonium, the Moscow
commentator argues, Putin’s moral idiotism, his “total indifference to good and
evil,” does not kill all at once as cyanide does but develops in such a way
that “at first, those surrounding it do not suppose that the infected
individual is condemned” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=56AB8BD051929).
“The poisoning of Russia by Putinism
initially passed unnoticed both within the country and among foreign
observers,” he says. “First was destroyed the nervous system, the independent
media. Then were put out of order the immune mechanisms of democracy … And then
occurred a general paralysis” of the country which continued to function only
because of high oil prices.
The world didn’t react to the first
symptoms when in 2008 “Russia attacked Georgia and seized part of its
territory.” Then six years later, it “committed an even more serious
international crime: for the first time in post-war history, [Russia] annexed
foreign territory” and then “began an aggressive war against Ukraine.”
On Putin’s head rest a growing number of
political murders, Yakovenko says; “but having given the order to Lugovoy and
Kovtun to point their former colleague Litvinenko with radioactive plutonium,
Putin committed a crime after which the world around him began to change.”
Indeed, it is likely even Putin “understand this.”
Immediately after the London high court’s
release of its conclusions, the Kremlin announced that Putin wouldn’t be going
to the security meeting in Munich in mid-February. The Russian president knows
that as long as he is chief of state, the chances of his being arrested there
are “equal to zero.”
“But to the extent that Putin doesn’t give
any value to law, he is certain that everyone else shares that position. Besides, he cannot fail to understand that
after he was declared a nuclear terrorism by the London court, the ‘velvet’
isolation around his person which existed before January 21, 2016, is extremely
likely to be replaced by something much more serious.”
Ever more media outlets in the West are
demanding that Putin be held accountable for his nuclear terrorism, and it
seems impossible to believe that “world leaders will be able to completely
ignore such clearly articulated public opinion,” Yakovenko says. And they will
be under more pressure to do so in the coming weeks.
The International Criminal Court is likely
to find equally “unambiguously” that Putin was behind the shooting down of the
Malaysian aircraft, an action that cost 298 lives. And one can hope that “Ukraine will be able
to organize suits against Russia for the theft of Crimea and the rape of the
Donbas.”
“True,” Yakovenko adds, “considering that
of all the leaders of the West only two have calls, German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and Lithuanian President Dalia Gribauskaite, one can’t hope that the
process of isolating the largest and most dangerous international criminal and
nuclear terrorist, Vladimir Putin, will occur quickly and decisively.”
What is important, he continues, is that
“each politician in the world who after January 21 risks entering into contact
with Putin be asked” about Putin’s involvement in nuclear terrorism and about
how making contact with him reduces the risks that he will engage in more such
actions against others in the future.
“Such questions must be given as well to
those American politicians who like Trump assert that he is sure to get along
with Putin and to those European politicians who consider it necessary to
immediately lift sanctions on the Putin regime and to those Israeli politicians
who call for reorienting Israel toward an alliance with Putin’s Russia.”
“Gentlemen, do you have a reliable means
of protection against polonium? If so, then you can boldly enter into relations
with Mr. Putin. Only don’t forget to take with you as well” other kinds of
protection like those the Malaysian jetliner didn’t have or that Boris Nemtsov
didn’t have available to him either.
For such criminal activities are an
integral part of the Putin regime with which you intend to cooperate.” In
addition, there are people like Ramzan Kadyrov who threaten the Russian
opposition, and the Russian militants in eastern Ukraine who continue to
terrorize that country as well.
Such questions should also be addressed to
“the numerous sympathizers of Putin in American and European universities,
because Putinism like polonium has poisoned not only Russia but left its
poisonous traces in all countries of the world.” Faced with this, “the complete
international isolation of Putin is the first step to rid the planet of the
threat of Putinism.”
“The second and much more difficult step
is the de-Putinization of Russia.” Foreigners have a role to play by isolating
Putin and thus “destroying the main Putin myth that under him, Russia has again
begun to be respected in the world and that with Putin Russia has returned to
the club of the world powers.”
And the reverse is true as well, Yakovenko
says: “Obama by extending his hand to Putin is doing for the support of the
Putin regime in Russia no less than Ramzan Kadyrov and Dmitry Kiselyov.” If the
West sent a different signal, Russians would be encouraged to oppose Putin and
the results in the upcoming Duma elections would represent a step forward.
At present, the Moscow commentator says, “many
analysts are frightened that the regime which will come in place of the Putin
one will be still worse. It is possible that that will be the case. But in
order that this not happen, there must be cooperation between the healthy
forces inside Russia and the wise ones in the world, above all in the West.”
“The West and
above all the US must offer Russia something analogous to the Marshal Plan,”
Yakovenko concludes. “This is in the interests of the West itself” because it
will be far cheaper to help make Russia “a normal country” than to “have on
one-eighth of the earth’s surface [an enemy] with an enormous nuclear arsenal.”
No comments:
Post a Comment