However sad it is for Navalny, his family and friends, it seems highly coincidental that Putin would have him killed despite the many millions who watched Putin's Carlson interview, the Avdiivka fortress fell, the AFU's command structure was in disarray and Navalny's wife was conveniently on hand to address the Munich Security conference. As Scott Ritter observed, Navalny was "an MI6/CIA asset, an anti-Islamic and anti-Georgian racist, who participated in three failed attempts to assassinate Vladimir Putin and was trained, funded, and directed by the CIA to destabilize Russia," yet we're told Putin killed him. Meanwhile Chilean American Gonzalo Lira died miserably in a Ukrainian jail due to the lack of medical treatment and what was perceived to be pro-Russian journalism. His pleas for help and the fell on deaf ears in Washington. Despite wall-to-wall Western media hysteria about Navalny's death--something largely ignored in Russia--Lira's death was hardly noticed. Similarly Julian Assange, also guilty of committing journalism, for revealing US war crimes, is likely to face life behind American bars. These disparate events are hardly coincidental.
Glenn - I could have called Navalny a "quasi neo-liberal-part-time white nationalist" but I didn't think that would be very nice since his body hasn't even been returned for burial. If he was a Western intelligence asset (I've heard CIA and MI5 - why can't Ritter and the pro Russia crowd make up their mind or did the agencies amalgamate?)...then that would be a good reason for Putin to get rid of him one way or another. OR he could have been offed by his Western handlers for some unknown reason, who managed to penetrate a Russian penal colony in the Artic. OR maybe it was just a blood clot because Russia says so. OR the "clot shot" vaccines as I've read over and over in online comments. In the world of spy vs spy we are not meant to know what happens. And that's why it's such a "coincidence" when opposition leaders and dissidents happen to die in jail. Thus the sarcasm/parody of this post stands. Plus I'm taking the piss out of all these belligerent states so why not have some fun?
But I do believe the proximate cause of Navalny's death was his deteriorating health from opposition to Putin including previous poisoning. I know, now I'm going to hear all about how Navalny wasn't really poisoned...sheesh. Just as Julian Assange's deteriorating state is due to the "lawfare" waged against him by the US/UK and in particular the CIA. Navalny ended up with Sudden Death Syndrome and Assange is at risk by Living Death Syndrome.
Yes, I'm also looking forward to hearing about Lira in Part Two. Also, I don't know who killed Navalny or whether his accumulating ill health just killed him in a highly coincidental way. The autopsy may soon be published and that may help.
For sure your sarcasm, Punditman, stands but here are a few things to add about Navalny. He was an ultra-nationalist skin head at one point before standing and later being expelled by the Yabloko Party, precisely for his far right positions. He has little credibility or visibility within Russia despite lavish funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a Secretary of State organization that was behind the colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine and several others elsewhere (see Brian Berletic on Navalny). See the Napolitano interview below with Ray McGovern who describes the video of Navalny's manager with MI6. The British have had a much closer relationship with him than the CIA but both have supported his "anti-corruption, pro-democracy" line towards which he has swerved in recent years. This has made him the most important opposition figure to Putin in the eyes of the Western media but his largest polling support inside Russia was something like 2.5%. The Russian Communist Party is by far the second largest party in the Duma (which I've had a fancy dinner in once). Of course it was the British who claimed that the Skripals were poisoned with Novichuk (not far from MI6 headquarters), originally developed and then discarded by the Soviets. They thought it was too unstable to be handled because it could easily kill those administering it yet many versions of it have since been patented in the US.
So it's unclear who poisoned him with it, if indeed he was poisoned at the time he was on parole and the Russians allowed him out to the Charite hospital in Berlin. A blood test at that time showed he had lithium and an anti-Parkinsons drug in him but it's assumed that he has been taking those medications for some time. Ray McGovern goes into some of the details of his relationship with MI6 and the video.
It wouldn't have made sense for the FSB or Putin, for that matter, to kill Navalny when he was killed given the obvious degree to which they now have the upper hand on the front with the AFU, particularly after the capture of the Avdiivka. Putin is riding high as he faces reelection in March which huge Russian support at the polls. Cui Bono is the important question to ask.
Obviously with the capture of Avdiivka, the dominance of Russian troops all along the front, the collapse of Western support for Ukraine and the impending reelection of Putin with huge popular support, Putin is riding high and had no incentive to kill Navalny, who was already in prison.
A high school teacher of mine explained coincidence thusly: "If I move this chalk along the chalkboard and a poem appears, that's not a coincidence. But if I clap my hands and a tree falls down, it is." The point being that we ascribe the significance; it's nothing to do with a causal relationship.
So: no foundation for an argument. And yet...public statecraft relies on that very ambiguity: you can't prove (or indeed disprove) the allegation, but you're pretty sure you know. And any amount of cui bono doesn't help, because there aren't any angels (cf. his holiness Navalny). What's the point of whacking an opponent if the world doesn't suspect you? As your other interlocutor points out, Navalny wasn't really a threat. But if he meets with an unfortunate accident, other real or potential enemies know to stay off the grass, and the cowed masses stay cowed.
And how is Navalny's status as a CIA/MI6 asset relevant? He probably was (it's improbable he wasn't), but isn't it obvious that his death serves both Russia and the west quite nicely? Coincidences do abound.
Hillary's Clinton's 2011 crack about Gaddafi's death/lynching to me is the ugliest moment in her public career. Because it showed how cynically she viewed her role of Secretary of State. As the country's top diplomat, you would expect her to at least offer up a standard diplomatic platitude about "the tragic situation in Libya," or whatever, instead of that.
Our latter-day Kremlinologists seem to be in agreement that Vladimir Putin was particularly disturbed by Gaddafi's lynch-murder, including being raped with a bayonet beforehand. And that he worried it was what the Obama Administration had in mind for him. Apparently he mentioned it often in conversations. In any case, aside from any consideration or taste or morality, that was just a dumb thing for a Secretary of State to say in a TV interview. It was her job to pay attention to the signals she was publicly sending about American policy, but she preferred to gloat and polish her image as "tough."
More generally, the Obama Administration's Libyan policy was terrible and intervening directly in that civil war was an obviously bad idea. It destabilized Libya to this day. For the US to prioritize "stability" in various situations can be problematic. But loose-cannon policies that just create a mess can also be disastrous.
However sad it is for Navalny, his family and friends, it seems highly coincidental that Putin would have him killed despite the many millions who watched Putin's Carlson interview, the Avdiivka fortress fell, the AFU's command structure was in disarray and Navalny's wife was conveniently on hand to address the Munich Security conference. As Scott Ritter observed, Navalny was "an MI6/CIA asset, an anti-Islamic and anti-Georgian racist, who participated in three failed attempts to assassinate Vladimir Putin and was trained, funded, and directed by the CIA to destabilize Russia," yet we're told Putin killed him. Meanwhile Chilean American Gonzalo Lira died miserably in a Ukrainian jail due to the lack of medical treatment and what was perceived to be pro-Russian journalism. His pleas for help and the fell on deaf ears in Washington. Despite wall-to-wall Western media hysteria about Navalny's death--something largely ignored in Russia--Lira's death was hardly noticed. Similarly Julian Assange, also guilty of committing journalism, for revealing US war crimes, is likely to face life behind American bars. These disparate events are hardly coincidental.
Glenn - I could have called Navalny a "quasi neo-liberal-part-time white nationalist" but I didn't think that would be very nice since his body hasn't even been returned for burial. If he was a Western intelligence asset (I've heard CIA and MI5 - why can't Ritter and the pro Russia crowd make up their mind or did the agencies amalgamate?)...then that would be a good reason for Putin to get rid of him one way or another. OR he could have been offed by his Western handlers for some unknown reason, who managed to penetrate a Russian penal colony in the Artic. OR maybe it was just a blood clot because Russia says so. OR the "clot shot" vaccines as I've read over and over in online comments. In the world of spy vs spy we are not meant to know what happens. And that's why it's such a "coincidence" when opposition leaders and dissidents happen to die in jail. Thus the sarcasm/parody of this post stands. Plus I'm taking the piss out of all these belligerent states so why not have some fun?
But I do believe the proximate cause of Navalny's death was his deteriorating health from opposition to Putin including previous poisoning. I know, now I'm going to hear all about how Navalny wasn't really poisoned...sheesh. Just as Julian Assange's deteriorating state is due to the "lawfare" waged against him by the US/UK and in particular the CIA. Navalny ended up with Sudden Death Syndrome and Assange is at risk by Living Death Syndrome.
Yes, I'm also looking forward to hearing about Lira in Part Two. Also, I don't know who killed Navalny or whether his accumulating ill health just killed him in a highly coincidental way. The autopsy may soon be published and that may help.
For sure your sarcasm, Punditman, stands but here are a few things to add about Navalny. He was an ultra-nationalist skin head at one point before standing and later being expelled by the Yabloko Party, precisely for his far right positions. He has little credibility or visibility within Russia despite lavish funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a Secretary of State organization that was behind the colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine and several others elsewhere (see Brian Berletic on Navalny). See the Napolitano interview below with Ray McGovern who describes the video of Navalny's manager with MI6. The British have had a much closer relationship with him than the CIA but both have supported his "anti-corruption, pro-democracy" line towards which he has swerved in recent years. This has made him the most important opposition figure to Putin in the eyes of the Western media but his largest polling support inside Russia was something like 2.5%. The Russian Communist Party is by far the second largest party in the Duma (which I've had a fancy dinner in once). Of course it was the British who claimed that the Skripals were poisoned with Novichuk (not far from MI6 headquarters), originally developed and then discarded by the Soviets. They thought it was too unstable to be handled because it could easily kill those administering it yet many versions of it have since been patented in the US.
So it's unclear who poisoned him with it, if indeed he was poisoned at the time he was on parole and the Russians allowed him out to the Charite hospital in Berlin. A blood test at that time showed he had lithium and an anti-Parkinsons drug in him but it's assumed that he has been taking those medications for some time. Ray McGovern goes into some of the details of his relationship with MI6 and the video.
It wouldn't have made sense for the FSB or Putin, for that matter, to kill Navalny when he was killed given the obvious degree to which they now have the upper hand on the front with the AFU, particularly after the capture of the Avdiivka. Putin is riding high as he faces reelection in March which huge Russian support at the polls. Cui Bono is the important question to ask.
Obviously with the capture of Avdiivka, the dominance of Russian troops all along the front, the collapse of Western support for Ukraine and the impending reelection of Putin with huge popular support, Putin is riding high and had no incentive to kill Navalny, who was already in prison.
See Christoforou, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvYWG4dTAls; McGovern, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89RMbW97RLU&t=3789s; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uRXkw3_0BE; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t6mkx-QcDk&t=14s
A high school teacher of mine explained coincidence thusly: "If I move this chalk along the chalkboard and a poem appears, that's not a coincidence. But if I clap my hands and a tree falls down, it is." The point being that we ascribe the significance; it's nothing to do with a causal relationship.
So: no foundation for an argument. And yet...public statecraft relies on that very ambiguity: you can't prove (or indeed disprove) the allegation, but you're pretty sure you know. And any amount of cui bono doesn't help, because there aren't any angels (cf. his holiness Navalny). What's the point of whacking an opponent if the world doesn't suspect you? As your other interlocutor points out, Navalny wasn't really a threat. But if he meets with an unfortunate accident, other real or potential enemies know to stay off the grass, and the cowed masses stay cowed.
And how is Navalny's status as a CIA/MI6 asset relevant? He probably was (it's improbable he wasn't), but isn't it obvious that his death serves both Russia and the west quite nicely? Coincidences do abound.
Hillary's Clinton's 2011 crack about Gaddafi's death/lynching to me is the ugliest moment in her public career. Because it showed how cynically she viewed her role of Secretary of State. As the country's top diplomat, you would expect her to at least offer up a standard diplomatic platitude about "the tragic situation in Libya," or whatever, instead of that.
Our latter-day Kremlinologists seem to be in agreement that Vladimir Putin was particularly disturbed by Gaddafi's lynch-murder, including being raped with a bayonet beforehand. And that he worried it was what the Obama Administration had in mind for him. Apparently he mentioned it often in conversations. In any case, aside from any consideration or taste or morality, that was just a dumb thing for a Secretary of State to say in a TV interview. It was her job to pay attention to the signals she was publicly sending about American policy, but she preferred to gloat and polish her image as "tough."
More generally, the Obama Administration's Libyan policy was terrible and intervening directly in that civil war was an obviously bad idea. It destabilized Libya to this day. For the US to prioritize "stability" in various situations can be problematic. But loose-cannon policies that just create a mess can also be disastrous.