We are coming down to the moment when anybody who’s a hero in Washington will be an automatic supervillain in the world. America and her western allies have let criminals run amok for far too long. There are no better examples of this than the enshrinement of dastardly businessmen Bill Browder and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Here’s a story where “birds of a feather” really do flock together.
The New Yorker wants privateer investor Bill Browder to be seen wearing a red cape and blue tights. And New America Foundation fellow Joshua Yaffa, he wants to be his Lois Lane. Yaffa’s latest anti-Putin rant entitled “How Bill Browder Became Russia’s Most Wanted Man” attempts to portray Vladimir Putin as Lex Luther and Browder as Superman. Reading the piece again as I write this I feel the hatred from Yaffa; it’s a kind of desperate avarice he must feel against Russia’s leader. The way he rehashes the same old Sergei Magnitsky story that led to the passage of the 2012 Magnitsky Act by the Obama administration, it’s pitiful really. Yaffa wants New Yorker readers to believe Browder’s Hermitage Capital was in Russia at a critical moment to pass out $100 bills to poor people. But anybody who’s worked for “The Man” knows, hedge fund owners are mostly a bunch of lying, godless crooks empowered by high priced lawyers. Yeah, I worked in the steel mills of America for a time.
What you can’t read in the New Yorker story about Browder is the way the whole Magnitsky story was cooked up by the western order. This Foreign Policy story tells of a hacked email in between a U.S. State Department intelligence spook Robert Otto and CIA officers, mainstream media, NGOs, and international funds. The collection of hacked emails showed the Russia expert had serious doubts as to the veracity of the Magnitsky narrative. Like every other allegation against Putin and Russia, the Browder bullshit just stinks more and more. Browder’s lobbying efforts in Washington let to the Magnitsky Act — the first anti-Russian sanctions bill since the end of the Cold War.
“From the Email archive of Robert Otto, U.S. State Department Intelligence official: Bill Browder’s letter to Politico editor Matthew Kaminski.”
Sputnik News broke the full story here, including the curious fact that the letter somehow ended up in the email account of Kyle Parker, a staffer at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Like I said, the Bill Browder superhero fantasy begins to unravel.
Returning to Lois Lane, otherwise known as Joshua Yaffa, the writer is broadcast on every Putin hating media outlet from PBS to Foreign Affairs, Slate, the Kyiv Post, anywhere there’s a willing eyeball to read more Russophobia. But following the money flowing from the US State Department through the New America Foundation gives us our Browder kryptonite. But Israel Shamir nails Browder calling him “Untouchable,” and the whole “Browder affair is a heady upper-class Jewish cocktail of money, spies, politicians and international crime.” I won’t rehash Browder’s associations with the notorious Edmond Safra or his probable role in the killing of Boris Berezovsky. Read the Unz report for yourself. For me the Browder case is simple. The US State Department, and other deep state entities, they’re employing people like Joshua Yaffa through fellowship in New America and other think tanks, to do the down and dirty on Putin. The Russian leader ousted the biggest crooks in Russia, and they’re pissed. End of story.
Now for Mr. Khodorkovsky. If Bill Browder is the Superman of anti-Russia businessmen, the Yukos Oil mafioso Mikhail Khodorkovsky is the new order’s Batman – a kind of Dark Knight with obviously nefarious contacts – associations nobody in London or Washington cares about. Jailed then released by Putin for more or less stealing Russia’s energy wealth from her people, Khodorkovsky is the guy BP oil’s Lord Browne thought was a little bit “too” spooky to deal with. He’s also supported by the US and Brit governments, but I’ll let F. William Engdahl frame this supervillain for me:
“Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s real crime was not stealing Russia’s assets for a pittance in the bandit era of Yeltsin. His real crime is that he was a key part of a Western intelligence operation to dismantle and destroy what remains of Russia as a functioning state.”
Khodorkovsky’s not a hero at all. He’s a traitor to his country and her people. He’s a traitor to decency and truth, a willing pawn of the most powerful people in the world. And now he’s spending stolen cash to create yet another initiative against Putin. This time Khodorkovsky asks the world to believe in something called “The Dossier Center” as outlined by CBS News here. Listening to this Russian turncoat reminds me of Rudyard Kipling’s Kaa from the Jungle Book hissing “Trust in Me” too little Mowgli. Like Browder and other’s in the liberal world order’s stable of heroes, Khodorkovsky is a sociopath so far past despicable he irks the common man. Like none of us ever watched a spy thriller where Russian mafiosos ride up with an entourage of musclebound Kalashnikov toters.
As is always the case, whenever I look under the rock that is the new world order’s anti-Russia game I cannot even keep up with the cockroaches that run out from underneath. Social media coordinators to Soros and US Senators, presidents even, the pissed off Putin opponents out there is a multitude. Tracking them down via either slime trails or money trails is hard work, dizzying. But here’s my best shot at applying human logic and truth.
If Bill Browder or Khodorkovsky are either or both Vladimir Putin’s worst enemies, then why are either of them still alive? Digest this for a few moments.
Vladimir Putin has been blamed for having ordered a dozen ousted oligarchs and second-rate spies snuffed. Reporters, political activists, doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs have supposedly succumbed to Putin’s deadly aspirations. The names are well known by now: Boris Nemtsov, Boris Berezovsky, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Sergei Magnitsky, Natalia Estemirova, Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko, Paul Klebnikov, Sergei Yushenkov, and Vladimir Kara-Murza were supposedly killed on the Russian president’s orders. More recently the two-bit spy Sergei Skripal was supposedly poisoned with one of the deadliest chemical weapons known to man. But here are the two main things to consider. First, there’s never been any real proof. Secondly, and most importantly, Browder and Khodorkovsky are still alive!
The question for Joshua Yaffa and all the so-called experts on Putin is; “How is this possible?” If Bill Browder is telling the truth, and if Putin is worth $200 billion and if Browder is his worst enemy if he really did have all these others wiped out…. I’ll let each of you answer this riddle. But for Washington think tanks and politicians alike I suggest some distance from these anti-Putin birds before the whole truth comes out.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”