Contributors

Tuesday, December 05, 2017

A Corrupt and Criminal Nation Gets Its Comeuppance

The country’s government officials are forbidden to attend, its flag will not be displayed at the opening ceremony and its anthem will not sound. Any athletes from Russia who receive special dispensation to compete will do so as individuals wearing a neutral uniform, and the official record books will forever show that Russia won zero medals.
The 2014 Winter Olympics were held in Sochi, Russia, where the Russians had a complex scheme to scam the antidoping regimen. The lab that checked urine samples had a secret room where the Russians stored clean urine samples taken months before the Olympics, which were exchanged for steroid-tainted samples taken during the competition.

Russia won 33 medals in the 2014 Games, beating the U.S. count of 28. After investigations are complete, most of these Russians stand to lose their medals. The real winners will receive their medals, four years late, in a ceremony at the upcoming Winter Games.

After Sochi the director of the Russian anti-doping program, Grigory Rodchenkov, received an Order of Friendship medal from Vladimir Putin. But in November, 2015 the World Anti-Doping Agency identified Rodchenkov as the mastermind of the state-sponsored Russian doping program. Rodchenkov was fired and fled Russia. He has come clean about the Russian program, exposing Russia's dirty secrets in great detail.

Two other Russians involved with the antidoping program died within two weeks of each other in early 2016. Nikita Kamaev died of of a "heart attack" and Vyacheslav Sinev's cause of death was not specified -- though I'm guessing it was a case of acute lead poisoning that affects so many people who have outlived their usefulness to Vladimir Putin.

Russia is a corrupt oligarchy from top to bottom. It is a kleptocracy run by a man who richly rewards those who do the dirty work for him, but whom he liquidates when their corruption becomes known.

Putin believes the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union. Republicans have touted that collapse as the greatest achievement of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party. Yet, astonishingly, Republicans like Donald Trump and Dana Rohrabacher shower Putin with praises.

Americans who think that Putin is a man they can deal with are fools, cowards or collaborators. Putin is intent on destroying the United States and the democracies of Europe, using the freedoms of our democracies as weapons against us. Putin is a thug, a murderer, and a war criminal responsible for the downing of a civilian airliner over Ukraine and airstrikes on civilians in Syria.

Most every day there's another revelation about the Trump campaign's connections to the Russians -- like the meeting between Donald Jr. and the former Russian F.S.B director Alexander Torshin at -- of all places -- an NRA meeting, just days before he met with the lawyer promising dirt on Clinton.

As of this writing Donald Trump has yet to tweet anything about the IOC decision. But if he calls it a travesty and "fake news" we'll know he got his marching orders from Moscow. Like he always does.

No comments: