Posted on 12/07/2003 10:56:24 PM PST by RussianConservative
Not content with exporting "democracy" to Iraq, elements in the U.S. government, in their infinite hypocrisy, self-righteousness and busy-bodyness, have decided to push for "democracy" in Russia. The General Prosecutor's Office's attack on Yukos' now-defrocked CEO is being read on the other side of the Atlantic, apparently, as a heinous attack on "democracy" that must be punished by Russia's being thrown out of the G8.
Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Richard "Prince of Darkness" Perle, his democratic credentials well attested-for by his having helped toss hundreds of people into prison sans charge, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Joseph Lieberman are all calling for Russia's expulsion from the G8 because the General Prosecutor's Office has not been sufficiently "democratic" in its handling of their Golden Boy, former Yukos CEO and now jailbird Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Representatives Tom Lantos and Chris Kox are also preparing to chime in, adding their voices to the chorus of people who know next to nothing about Russia lambasting it. Perhaps most importantly, international financier George Soros endorsed the expulsion, perhaps feeling some special bond of sympathy with Khodorkovsky that only billionaires can share.
Truly, it is an amazing thing to behold — then-President Boris Yeltsin can shell parliament in 1993, thousands of ordinary Russian citizens can rot in prison under horrendous conditions on sometimes trumped-up charges and environmentalists can be persecuted, and nary a word of protest is heard. The one thing that draws the ire of these people, who seem to have a rather elitist notion of "democracy," is an attack on a multibillionaire who, incidentally, is very likely guilty as sin. Some may have forgotten how Khodorkovsky made his money in the 1990s and what it led to, but we have not. For all his slick PR machine, generous "endowments" and genuine clean-up of his former company, Khodorkovsky in reality has been only the most successful of the gangsters who commandeered the Russian economy, and rushing to the defense of their favorite bandit and trying to portray him as some Moscow version of Nelson Mandela does not cast his foreign friends in a positive light. Money does indeed talk, in the halls of power as well as on the tawdriest of criminal streetcorners.
The proceedings against Khodorkovsky may be a selective application of justice, but they are an application of justice all the same. The "democracy" with which Messrs. Perle, McCain ad nauseum are concerned has nothing to do with the ordinary Russian, who despises Khodorkovsky and his ilk and is not shy about saying it in easily available opinion polls. Of this, the chest-thumping crusaders in Washington are either blithely or cynically unaware. If anything, it is a continuation of the American habit of aiding and abetting the worst abortions Russian bandit capitalism has had the misfortune to produce.
When faced by something so utterly hypocritical and morally rancid wafting its way across the ocean, the best Russia can do is hold its nose, walk away — and let the General Prosecutor's Office do its job.
lol, I can't help but like the article if it starts out like that.
Khodorkovsky in reality has been only the most successful of the gangsters who commandeered the Russian economy...
That's the way I understand it. And there were A LOT of Clinton cronies who made it rich helping to subvert and corrupt the Russian economy when it was young. A great deal of the moral misery there now is a direct result of their greed.
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