| by Paul Craig
Roberts
( December 12,
2012, Washington DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) With its power declining, Washington
was not able any longer to keep Russia out of the World Trade Organization.
Congress showed its spite over its impotence by hooking the normalizing of
trade with Russia to what is called the “Magnitsky rule.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20634768
Sergei Magnitsky
was a Russian attorney who represented a British investment firm accused of tax
evasion and fraud in Russia. Apparently, the UK firm supplied information to
media alleging government misconduct and participation in corruption inside
state-owned Russian companies.
 |
Washington is like the drunk in a bar who picks a fight with a bruiser. Washington is full of itself, but Russia and China are not going to put up with a financially busted and militarily overstretched popinjay. The evil in Washington is driving us into nuclear war and into the destruction of life on earth.
Magnitsky
represented the accused UK firm. He claimed that the firm had not committed
fraud but had been a victim of fraud. In turn, Magnitsky was arrested. He
developed serious illnesses in prison for which he apparently received
inadequate medical care.
Whether he died
of untreated illnesses, we cannot know. But the US Congress, acting on the
unsubstantiated allegation that Magnitsky was tortured and murdered, attached
to the trade normalization bill a provision that requires the US government to
release a list of Russian government officials believed or imagined to have
been involved with the violation of Magnitsky’s human rights and to freeze the
assets of these members of the Russian government and to deny them visas to
travel to the US. Considering Washington’s belief that its law is the universal
law of humankind, Washington probably intends for every country to enforce its
edict or to be sanctioned in turn.
The Russian
government finds the “Magnitsky rule” amusing. Here is the Russian government
accused, without any evidence, of ONE torture and death, while Washington has
such a large number of torture deaths from Abu Ghraib to Gitmo to the secret
CIA torture centers to endless drone attacks on kids‘ soccer games, weddings,
funerals, medical clinics, schools, farm houses and aid workers. The evidence
is completely clear that Washington has tortured a number of individuals to
death and into false confessions and blown to pieces thousands of innocents
known as “collateral damage.” No one but Washington and its servants denies
this. But one alleged Russian offense against human rights brings forth an act
of the US Congress, all in a huff about the violation of a Russian lawyer’s
human rights.
A number of
rulers in human history have been this arrogant. But has a democracy ever been?
Athens perhaps, but Sparta taught Athens a lesson.
What do the
members of Congress think is the response of the rest of the world to
Washington’s utter hypocrisy? How can Washington pass a law punishing Russian
government officials for allegedly doing once what we know for an absolute fact
Washington does every day?
The
holier-than-thou presence that Washington presents to the world is so phony and
shopworn that Washington is becoming not only despised but a laughing stock.
Peoples cease to fear the “superpower” when they laugh at its folly, hypocrisy
and utter stupidity.
Certainly, the
Russians are not afraid. The Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, responded
to the Washington morons as follows: “It is inadmissible when one country tries
to dictate its will to another.” The Magnitsky rule will bring forth a
“symmetrical and asymmetrical reaction from Russia.” The Russian Duma seems
intent that this be the case. http://rt.com/politics/prepares-russias-reply-magnitsky-705/print/
Washington is
like the drunk in a bar who picks a fight with a bruiser. Washington is full of
itself, but Russia and China are not going to put up with a financially busted
and militarily overstretched popinjay. The evil in Washington is driving us
into nuclear war and into the destruction of life on earth.
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