Russian liberal former TV executive's has a unique take on Russia's Syria campaign
This post first appeared on Russia Insider
The British news agency Reuters has published the single craziest comment on Russia’s bombing campaign.
This is by Peter Pomerantsev, a failed Russian TV executive, who has written a runaway best-seller about Russia called “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible”.
In this book Pomerantsev claims Russia is a virtual, post-modernist state, in which public opinion is expertly manipulated by the Kremlin’s evil genius: witch doctor/spin doctor Vladislav Surkov.
Nothing is real in Russia, Pomerantsev tells us, not elections, not political parties, not anything. It’s all made up - a virtual show - made up by Surkov to keep the people fooled and stupid, so that they go on voting for Putin.
The Western cognoscenti have (of course) rushed to embrace Pomerantsev and his book.
Not only is his book a best-seller but he now writes a column for Britain’s prestigious “London Review of Books”.
What then to make of his comment on Russia’s bombing ISIS? Here’s how Reuters reports it:
"The message here is 'Look if we can launch missiles at Syria we can definitely crush any protests so don't even think about it’”.
So that’s what it’s all about!
It’s not about helping Assad, bombing ISIS, or scaring the pants off Washington.
It’s all about freaking out Moscow’s anti-Putin protesters! All 500 of them!
Some of us might think hitting ISIS in Syria with cruise missiles is a rather expensive way to do it.
Then again, some of us might think Pomerantsev is nuts.
This post first appeared on Russia Insider
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