Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Putin's Nazi Inheritance

As the Putin regime currently in power in Moscow increasingly takes on the aspect of a totalitarian government, the country's leader is also losing any last inhibitions he may have had about appearing as an heir to the fascist leaders of the 1930s. Putin's recent appearance at a Hitler-Jugend-like Nashi "youth camp", where he attacked as "colonialist" Britain's response to the refusal of extradition for the KGB operative who is the primary suspect in the Litvinenko poisoning affair, made him look disturbingly akin to such figures of the past.

At chechnya-sl, Norbert Strade has commented on Putin's "high-pitched whining", the shrillness of which is reminiscent of a familiar voice from Europe's tormented past, reflecting, just as Germany did in the 1930s, "the stupid arrogance of a regime that is itself colonialist to the core and believes that this is totally normal for a Russian Empire but a crime for others. Once again, a Russian tragedy is moving into the realm of farces and burlesques. Btw., Britain would probably have extradited Zakayev, if it wasn't for two things: a) that the Russian "evidence" against him was a clown act and an insult to a hard-working British court, b) that Zakayev had no chance for a fair trial and correct treatment in Russia - which means that Britain *couldn't* extradite him because international human rights conventions overrule bilateral extradition treaties.

"Nothing of this applies to Lugovoi. The evidence against him is massive, he would get a fair trial in London, and nobody would torture him or help him fall from a window. What the KGB mob really is afraid of is the risk that their hitman might squeal while in British custody. They'd rather finish him off with a SIM-card than letting him go. Lugovoi wasn't meant to be identified in the first place, but the brilliant plan wasn't so brilliant after all, and now the little man in the big Kremlin office is very, very angry."

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