Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

[Woodsman]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

Peace for all

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

As far as I can tell, Mr. Don didn't express an opinion on whodunit.

Just.........wow.

Perhaps enough of a tipoff lies in the gift wrapping for our MSM "reportage", fed directly on a drip into sheeple consciousness.

Or to put the question another way, if Putin wanted him gone, wouldn't he have employed something a bit more subtle, say a plane crash or the 'Arafat solution'.


His killing has all the earmarks of a US-staged false flag.

Clearly Putin had nothing to gain.

Rogue US elements have lots to benefit from trying to destabilize Russia.

If Putin wanted Nemtsov dead, it’s inconceivable he’d order a Mafia-style contract killing. An “unfortunate” plane or car crash would have been more likely.

Perhaps cleverly poisoning him the way Obama murdered Chavez and Sharon killed Arafat.

Gunning him down in central Moscow automatically rules out Kremlin involvement.

all the earmarks of a CIA-staged false flag.

Does Washington plan more political assassinations

Russians aren’t stupid.

How neocon lunatics in charge are capable of anything.

I'd laugh if this wasn't iTulip.

Not just this thread, but this forum is beginning to go full retard.

I'm fully aware of the structural shortcomings of the US, the industrial scale special interest corruption that is destroying its potential, and the evil that has emanated from the US at times. That's part of achieving a balanced perspective.

We don't accept tabloid rumour and conjecture when it comes to financial reportage, analysis, and opinion.

But we accept by default this hot mess lacking in anything remotely associated with fact based reporting/analysis/opinion.

Since when did shining indefensible turds become acceptable behavior on this forum?

Highly disappointing "news".

It makes CNBC seem like the gold standard of journalistic balance.

[Woodsman]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

Just.........wow...

Thanks for your tireless effort to keep us on the narrow path of correct opinion. What would we do without it?

[vt]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

As I stated a number of times, it was wrong for the U.S. to go into Vietnam and Iraq in 2003. The Gulf War was justified under national security and global energy needs. A number of the above are also questionable interventions.

The list of purported U.S. false flag events posted is straight out of right wing guys like Alex Jones and other conspiracy nutcases. Lake correctly pointed that out.

As to your list above, where is the one for Russia?

[don]

The Fundamentals of Empire?

When the Romans, after their great victory in Italy over the Carthaginians on the Metaurus River in 207, decided to put Greek action on hold and concentrate on defeating Hannibal and putting an end to the Second Punic War, Philip grew more aggressive, and set about building a strong fleet, funded by piracy and shakedown blackmail in the Aegean. He ravaged Pergamon and raided Attica. Patriotic Panhellenism grew, but so did opposition to Philip, whose atrocities were becoming notorious. The Romans, shrewd propagandists, now presented themselves as anti-Macedonian protectors of the Greeks, a move that attracted supporters. After their final victory over Carthage at Zama in 202, they turned their attention, seriously, to dealing with Philip.

The Greeks regarded the Romans as barbarians, and therefore also as essentially stupid; the Romans, on the other hand, saw the Greeks as clever but ill-disciplined children, and themselves as the grown-ups whose business was to keep them in order. This order did not permit the Greeks to engage in independent activities (such as military force) in the pursuit of freedom, an aspiration only acceptable from loyal clients of Rome, and not always even from them. (e.g. Euroland)

Rome’s confident assumption of superior, almost colonial, authority in relations with the Greek world becomes most clearly apparent from this point on. It had its useful side, in that Rome soon became a kind of unofficial appellate court: it was the first choice when any Hellenistic state sought an arbitrator. But it was the same confidence that led to the kind of de haut en bas ultimatums: first to Philip in 197, then to Antiochus III in 189, and finally, and most disastrously, to Philip’s son Perseus, the last of the Antigonid dynasty, in 168. These ultimatums may have been standard for Romans, but in demanding complete subservience, they left each one of these monarchs no option, if he was to retain any self-respect, but to pit himself against the formidable might of the legions. (a lengthy list)

In the case of Philip, Rome was offering general support to the Greeks against Macedonia, demanding Philip’s complete evacuation of Greece, the “freeing” of all Greek states that had ever come under his control, and payment for his damage to Pergamon. As Waterfield says, had Philip accepted these demands, “he would be acknowledging the right of the Romans to dictate the future of Greece.” He chose to fight and—despite a successful phalanx charge—was defeated by the Roman legions at Cynoscephalae in Thessaly in 197.

The Roman consul T. Quinctius Flamininus had, among other things, one highly practical objective in forcing a battle. As Waterfield reminds us, generals in the field were expected to contribute part of their spoils to the exchequer at home. The lengthy war against Hannibal had left the Roman treasury dangerously depleted. Thus, Rome’s first demand upon Philip after his defeat was for the payment of a thousand-talent war indemnity, while Flamininus’s triumphal display in 194 included, among other treasures, 3,714 pounds of gold ingots. Reparations were to be augmented still further by systematic looting.

Less than a decade later, the Seleucid king Antiochus III, back from a successful campaign to restore his empire’s lost territories in Asia Minor and Afghanistan, India, and the Persian Gulf, ignored Roman warnings about staying out of Europe. He was then crushingly defeated at Magnesia, near modern Izmir in Turkey. By that time, Roman officialdom had a far more realistic idea of what it could hold out for. Antiochus’ war indemnity was set at 15,000 talents: 500 payable on the spot, 2,500 on the signing of the peace treaty (which lost him his holdings in Thrace and Asia Minor), and the remainder in twelve annual payments. Such an influx of capital not only let the Roman Republic repay its loans, but literally revolutionized Rome’s economy. In 187 Antiochus was killed while raiding a temple for cash, part of a desperate effort to meet these punitive obligations.

Twenty years later, Philip V’s son and successor Perseus was likewise, as we have seen, brought to battle by Rome, amid a farrago of far-fetched charges (which included alleged plans to poison the Roman Senate). In reality, he was attacked for little more than being, in effect, too popular with the Greeks, too independent, too indifferent to Rome’s instructions. Once again, Rome’s ultimatum was of the sort that left him no choice but to fight. His defeat at Pydna in 168 by Aemilius Paullus was a bloodbath. Though Paullus himself, a seasoned commander, afterward admitted that he had never seen a more terrifying spectacle than the steady advance of the Macedonian phalanx, nevertheless Roman troops successfully infiltrated its flanks on rough terrain, and 20,000 Macedonians were killed. This time the victors remembered the advice they had received years earlier from the Aetolians: they abolished the Macedonian monarchy, and broke up the country into four powerless republican cantons. They also systematically looted Macedonia of its reserves and treasures: the haul was so enormous that for a century Rome needed to impose no new ad hoc taxes.

(a carpet of gold, or a carpet of bombs . . .)

As a demonstration of sheer unanswerable power, Pydna had a considerable ripple effect. That same year, the young Seleucid king Antiochus IV gave signs of planning, by either conquest or treaty, to move in on the weak regime in Ptolemaic Egypt. This offended Rome’s notions of the proper Hellenistic balance of power. Rome’s legate, Popilius Laenas, met Antiochus in Eleusis, a suburb of Alexandria, with a peremptory request that he should evacuate his troops from Egypt—and from Cyprus—or face war. Antiochus asked for time to decide. Laenas drew a circle round him in the sand with his swagger stick, and told Antiochus to give an answer before he stepped out of it. He did. Peace with Rome, he said, outclassed anything he might gain in Egypt. So much, now, for royal Seleucid dignity.

Anchises, Aeneas’s father, in the Aeneid’s great prophetic scene, announces that Rome’s mission will be parcere subiectis et debellare superbos, “to spare the conquered and subdue the arrogant.” Those who read the works under review in chronological sequence will end with a very clear idea of how this state of affairs came about. The story they tell—like Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue—is a lesson in the arrogant self-confidence engendered by a progressive imperial power feeding on inherent divisiveness among possible opponents and the vision of limitless wealth as well as empire. Nothing, we reflect, could be less realistic than the Achaean League’s dream of dealing with Rome on equal terms; nothing more futile than the Achaean League’s suicidal uprising against Roman dominance in 146. Yet there are times, despite Polybius’s hedging, when—if the concept of freedom, Greek eleutheria, is not to be abandoned as meaningless—such a sacrificial stand against insuperable odds may, despite all reason, be chosen as the only acceptable answer to force majeure.

from:

When the Roman Empire Didn’t Stop

Peter Green (NYRB)

[Woodsman]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

...As to your list above, where is the one for Russia?

It's the Wiki's list, not mine. In terms of Russian invasions, there have been 3 since WWII:
Hungary
Czechoslovakia
Afghanistan

The wiki has a more comprehensive list and you can check it out yourself.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milit...e_Soviet_Union

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

It's the Wiki's list, not mine. In terms of Russian invasions, there have been 3 since WWII:
Hungary
Czechoslovakia
Afghanistan

The wiki has a more comprehensive list and you can check it out yourself.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milit...e_Soviet_Union

I guess such an endless appetite for both real and alleged overt/covert action by the U.S. doesn't allow mindshare for direct invasions like Chechnya, Chechnya scorched earth edition, Georgia, Ossetia, Ukraine, etc., the proxy list would be longer.

I found that opening my other eye made it easier to see an updated list with a copyright more recent than 1980.

[sishya]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

These are some of prominent leaders killed during Putinocracy's reign.
Then add all those other folks in house arrest. The list is long.

I think for many folks here, "grass is just greener on the other side".
What a pity, but you ask folks if they want to live in Russia or be Russia's neighbor, I bet you will get very few hands.
Ask Mexicans(or even Cuba) if they prefer to be magically transported to near Russia, I bet it will be negative.
Ask Polish and you may get a more favorable answer.


Even Ed Snowden is trying to claw back to USA, because I think, he thinks he will get a better deal here.
Even Bradley Manning (aka Chelsea Manning) is being allowed Gender transition in Prison.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos...fd7815d842c426








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[Master Shake]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

Two words: Vince Foster.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

Two words: Vince Foster.

ROFL!.
Master Shake, you do a great job remembering all the classics.

I think you should turn your attention to the nefarious guitarist Eric Clapton.
You know, he was one of the last people to see these other great guitar players before their untimely death

- Jimi Hendrix
- Stevie Ray Vaughn
- Duane Allman

It's obvious Clapton has been bumping off his competition for decades.

And last fall he finally managed to bump off Jack Bruce, the bassist from Cream.
You know, they never really got along, and that whole "liver disease" story is a crock.

[Master Shake]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

ROFL!.
Master Shake, you do a great job remembering all the classics.

I think you should turn your attention to the nefarious guitarist Eric Clapton.
You know, he was one of the last people to see these other great guitar players before their untimely death

- Jimi Hendrix
- Stevie Ray Vaughn
- Duane Allman

It's obvious Clapton has been bumping off his competition for decades.

And last fall he finally managed to bump off Jack Bruce, the bassist from Cream.
You know, they never really got along, and that whole "liver disease" story is a crock.

Not sure what Clapton has to do with this. Putin's a thug, but suspicious deaths of politically inconvenient people are not confined to Russia. Besides Foster, there were lots of "interesting" deaths in Mena, AR during Clinton's term as governator.

[don]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

Colin Powell said it best:

[don]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

from Mish . . . .

Rush to Judgment and Extremely Inaccurate Reporting

Rush to Judgment

The moment Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down last Friday, Western media rushed to judgment. Heck, even friends who should know better rushed to judgment.

One friend sent me the New York Times article After Boris Nemtsov's Assassination, 'There Are No Longer Any Limits' along with this comment:

"The world cannot stand by and let the formula of repression and stealth special forces intervention and sowing contrived disruption succeed, as next there will be little green men in the Baltic states sowing dissention -- we are not going to go through a rinse, repeat and shampoo cycle again in those countries."

I replied...

The headline is ridiculous because

1. [*=left]No one knows who did it.
   [*=left]It's none of our business anyway
   [*=left]If we have any moral responsibility it should not be to corrupt puppet governments, but rather the people of Ukraine
   [*=left]The people of Ukraine do not need 4 more years of war nor a mass US invasion
   [*=left]The people of the US do not need and cannot afford a war with Russia

To which I heard "Of course you think the US did it. That was predictable. One does not need to think too hard to figure out what happened here. There is a clear pattern. Europe and the liberal world order are too precious. This has to stop now."

If that's not rush to judgment, what is?

Numerous Possibilities

It would not surprise me in the least to find out the US or Ukraine had some involvement in this. Given disastrous US foreign policy everywhere, including involvement in the Ukraine Maidan uprising, how anyone can be sure of anything is beyond me.

I am not saying "Putin did not do it." Rather I am saying "I don't know".

I do know that Nemtsov could be considered washed out. Russians dropped him and his party in droves when he supported Kiev in the Ukrainian civil war. I also know his mistress was Ukrainian and Nemtsov flew her to Switzerland to have an abortion.

There are any number of possibilities here, including the strong possibility that making Nemtsov a martyr made him worth more alive than dead to Putin, and more dead than alive to the anti-Putin movement.

Could Nemtsov have been setup by his mistress? The only "no" answer I can come up with is along the lines of "dead women tell no tales". Why would someone leave her as a witness except by accident?

Extremely Inaccurate Reporting

With rush to judgment out of the way, let's turn our focus on some extremely inaccurate headlines.

For example, Yahoo!Finance reported on February 28, Nemtsov Admitted Fears for Life Weeks Before Murder.

The headline, the body of the article, and the actual interview do not match.

From Yahoo!Finance

Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, gunned down on Friday in a contract-style killing, gave an interview this month admitting he had feared for his life over his opposition to President Vladimir Putin.

In an interview with weekly Sobesednik, Nemtsov was asked: "Have you started worrying that Putin could personally kill you in the near future or do it through middle men?"

He replied: "You know... yes. A little.

"But all the same I'm not that scared of him. If I was that afraid, I would hardly have headed an opposition party and would hardly be doing what I'm doing now," he said in the interview published in early February.

In a light-hearted exchange, the Sobesdenik journalist told Nemtsov: "I hope that common sense will prevail after all and Putin won't kill you."

"God willing. I hope so too," Nemtsov replied.

Actual Interview

The actual interview went nothing like the above.

Nemtsov never admitted fear of being killed. Rather he commented his mother (not he) feared for his life.

That link is to the full interview in Russian. Run it through any translator you want. What follows is my edited Yandex translation.

Nemtsov: When I called her regularly, she says, "Son, when will you stop criticizing Putin? He'll kill you" (Nemtsov laughs).

Reporter: Finally, I will ask you, are you afraid of Putin? More cautious?

Nemtsov: Slightly afraid. [See my note below for a more accurate translation]

Reporter: But a little fear, yes?

Nemtsov: "Well listen, I'm kidding. If I was afraid, I would hardly have headed an opposition party and would hardly be doing what I'm doing now."

Not Really Afraid

Note: Reader Jacob Dreizin informs me, that "slightly afraid" better translates as "not really". The context and the reporter's followup question both indicate "not really" is a better translation.

Nowhere was a question asked "Have you started worrying that Putin could personally kill you in the near future or do it through middle men?"

Reader Andrei Chimes In

I also pinged this post off reader Andrei who speaks Russian and graciously offered help with Russian translations. He confirms what Jacob had to say.

Reader Andrei went on ...

Nemtsov says he is "afraid a little bit" or "not really afraid". In Russian both are quite close to each other. But then he follows up with "if I was afraid I would not be leading the opposition" etc.

The actual question from interviewer should have been translated as "And the last question I want to ask you - are you afraid of Putin? Or are you going to be more careful now?" To which Nemtsov replies that if he was afraid he would not be doing what he does.

Nowhere in interview there is a line from the reporter about "let's hope Putin won't kill you" neither Boris reply about god willing. The whole interview is about his relationship with his mom with some small bits about how she does not like Putin.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need any further elaboration.

Cheers, Andrei

The critical question was made up by someone. So was the answer. So was the exchange about "God willing". Or, if you prefer, the posted interview is a lie.

Which is it?

[vt]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

2 Suspects Detained:

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-2-suspe...092959570.html

[don]

Re: Putin Opposition Leader Shot Dead At Kremlin

Rush to Judgment Part II: Media Myths Shattered; Whodunit? Four Arrested



Whodunit?

It appears my post yesterday challenging conventional wisdom of "whodunit" was fortuitously timed. (See Rush to Judgment and Extremely Inaccurate Reporting). No doubt the anti-Putin conspiracy crowd will start suspecting I was in on it all along.

Please consider Two Suspects Held Over Murder of Kremlin Critic Nemtsov.

Two suspects have been detained over the killing of Boris Nemtsov, Russian officials said, a week after he was shot dead near the Kremlin in the most high-profile killing of an opposition figure in years.

The Investigative Committee, the state body leading the investigation, named the two men as Anzor Gubashev and Zaur Dadayev.

"The individuals detained are, according to our investigation, involved in the organization and execution of the killing of Boris Nemtsov," the committee said in a statement.

Russian state-controlled media reported the two were from the Caucasus, a violent and impoverished region on Russia's southern flank. They were expected to be formally arrested at a court hearing in Moscow on Sunday, the reports said.

"I want to believe that these ones are really the ones who conducted (the killing) and that once in a while law enforcement worked professionally and detained real assassins, and did not make a mistake," Ilya Yashin, the co-chairman of Nemtsov's party, said of the two suspects.

"The key task for investigators is to find and prosecute the ones who ordered this murder. If everything ends with the detention of scapegoats, irrespective of whether they are the real assassins or not, the practice of political assassinations will continue with no doubt."

Yashin and other associates of Nemtsov said that until Saturday they had never heard of the two men detained.

Nemtsov was a liberal who had served as deputy prime minister in the 1990s and later became a staunch critic of Putin. He was shot within sight of the Kremlin walls as he walked home from a cafe.

It was the most high-profile killing of an opposition figure in Putin's 15-year rule.

The killing caused shock among Russia's liberal opposition, but they draw their support only from the relatively small urban middle class. The vast majority of Russians back Putin. For them, Nemtsov was a marginal figure tainted by his role in government in the chaotic 1990s.

SCRIBBLED NOTE

Nemtsov's closest aide told Reuters that the day before his death he clandestinely scribbled a note to her about how he was investigating the involvement of Russia's military in fighting in east Ukraine.

No one has produced any direct evidence the Kremlin had anything to do with Nemtsov's killing.

People from the Caucasus have been named as suspects in other assassinations, including those of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist critical of the Kremlin, in 2006 and of Paul Klebnikov, a U.S. citizen and journalist with the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, in 2004.

Politkovskaya's supporters say the Chechens sentenced for her killing were low-level foot soldiers, and that investigators failed to find out who was behind her murder.

Four Arrested

Although two were the trigger-men, four have now been arrested. KP.RU reports Two More Arrested. Details are scant.

Media Myths Shattered

Media Myth: Nemtsov was a well-liked, high-profile opposition leader.
Reality: The vast majority of Russians back Putin.

Media Myth: Putin had everything to gain by killing Nemtsov.
Reality: Nemtsov was a marginal figure tainted by his role in government in the chaotic 1990s. He was no threat to Putin. Indeed, Putin had everything to lose and nothing to gain by making a martyr out of Nemtsov.

Media Myth: (as originally reported). Putin shut off video cameras, and that makes Putin a prime suspect.
Reality: Cameras were operative and that helped track the killers.

Media Myth: Nemtsov's closest aide told Reuters that the day before his death he clandestinely scribbled a note to her about how he was investigating the involvement of Russia's military in fighting in east Ukraine.
Reality: Perhaps he scribbled a note. Who knows? More importantly, so what? Why Reuters made a big issue in with an all capitalized subtitle is a mystery. It is well understood that Nemtsov sided with Kiev in the Ukraine civil war. The reality is that Nemtsov's position on the war marginalized him and his party.

Conspiracy Theory Number One

The Putin haters will believe this was all some massive, extremely well planned conspiracy in which the police were purposely late to investigate, that Putin ordered the hit because he needed to get rid of Nemtsov because Nemtsov had some huge news on the war in Ukraine.

Conspiracy Theory Number Two

Ukraine, in hyperinflation, having just lost many key battles in the Ukraine civil war, whose government came into power in suspicious means with no one arrested for the sniper attacks that started it all, is behind this mess, needing sympathy from the IMF and weapons from the US.

Conspiracy Theory Number Three

The CIA wants to destabilize Russia and paid for the hit.

Simple Theory One

Someone in Russia or Ukraine wanted to make a martyr out of Nemtsov.

Simple Theory Two

Men from a region of Russia known for taking out prominent political figures had some other grudge against Nemtsov

Assessing the Possibilities

The anti-Putin crowd will cling to conspiracy theory one, and the anti-US crowd to theory conspiracy number three.

I will be the first to admit any of the above five theories is possible. Degree of likelihood is in the eyes of the beholder, but Occam's Razor suggests simple theories over more complex ones.

Regardless, once again I conclude there is no need to rush to judgment.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com