John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Butina Broken by Torture, 'Admits' Guilt on Absurd Charges
“Butina campaigns for gun rights which Putin opposes and is closer to the oppositionist Navalyn so the charges she is an agent of the Russian government -- which she just "confessed" to -- are patently absurd”
The United States has demonstrated in this case only how unbalanced it has become. "Unhinged" might be a more accurate word.
Maria Butina basically is charged with failing to register as a "foreign agent" and establishing connections with the National Rifle association and the National Prayer Breakfast.
I wasn't aware that either of these organizations had anything to do with national security or, indeed, any other important matter. They are, in a manner of speaking, trivial.
They are both private organizations, and it is more than a little difficult to understand how establishing friendships with a person of Russian nationality, who received higher education in the United States, represents a threat to anyone or anything.
So, for this truly grave offense, you arrest a person and put them into solitary confinement until the person is willing to sign a "confession" of being an agent of a foreign state. Her treatment has included sleep deprivation and extreme isolation, as being given physical exercise in the prison courtyard only alone in the middle of the night.
Well, anyone familiar with America's record of police and prison brutality - three people a day are killed on the streets by American police and no one knows how many prison inmates are killed, but one estimate put it at better than two a day - and penchant for excessive force is not surprised.
What's next? Going after Russian "pen pals" or friends on social media of American students? My God, perhaps there's a threat which hasn't yet been explored by America's Neanderthal security establishment.
As we know from recent American efforts to attack Russian broadcaster/news organization, RT, for a very similar "offence," America can use some of its excessive and convoluted laws in highly selective ways.
Somehow, another country's persistent and intense efforts to affect American laws and politicians directly are simply routinely ignored. I refer, of course, to the huge, well-financed efforts of Israel to ingratiate itself and to lobby for or against actual legislation with the entire American legislative apparatus, right down to the state legislatures.
But a single young Russian woman deserves really harsh treatment for the "offense" of making acquaintances at the National Rifle Association and America's National Prayer Breakfast.
America should be ashamed of itself, but I know that it is not. It is incapable of shame anymore after Guantanamo and Syria and Iraq and Vietnam and with a President who weekly tweets personal insults at people and foreign leaders.
