Many Fail to Recognize that the President of a Nuclear Power can Be a Bandit, Shekhtman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 31 – Many, from the leaders of Western countries to the leaders of the Russian opposition, are failing to recognize that a bandit can play the role of a businessman, an official or “even the president of a nuclear power,” but that whatever role he is in, he nonetheless remains a bandit, Pavel Shekhtman says.

            They must realize that “if something acts like a dog, it is a dog” and that “bandit isn’t a course word, it is simply the name of a profession, which,  like any other profession – bookkeeper, military officer, or prostitute – leaves its mark on the outlook and mentality of an individual,” the Moscow commentator says (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=59A588D2BF8B4).

                And this, rather than the nominal position “is the defining factor: everything else is secondary.”

            “A bandit may turn up in the role of businessman (the majority of bandits are nominally that), a bureaucrat, a policeman, a judge or even the president of a nuclear power.  None of these other positions means that he ceases to be a bandit, and consequently for achieving results in dealing with them one must adopt methods” used to deal with criminals.

            Unfortunately, Shekhtman says, “this is something that neither Obama nor Nemtsov wants to understand.

            He continues: “In the struggle with a bandit, one can appeal only to force. Even when you appeal to legal institutions, you all the same are appealing to force, to the state apparatus of force which by definition is stronger than any band.  Law doesn’t work by itself – law works through a complex system where behind the judge always stands the policeman … and the jailor.”

            But there are circumstances when there is no such force behind the law because the bandits have taken over that as well. This is the case in Russia now, and the only real possibility of salvation is to create “the appearance” of such legality so that the bandits will decide that it is better to adapt to that than to continue as they are.

            “Naturally, this is a very risky method of struggle, but it is the only possible one from a position of weakness” which is where those in Russia are given the current power of the bandits there at the top. Those “who don’t play poker with the bandits is [will otherwise] simply be giving everything away.”