Dead Russian Journalist Worked on Weapons Story
March 6th, 2007Via: SFgate/AP:
A journalist who fell to his death from a fifth-story window had received threats while gathering material for a report claiming Russia planned to provide sophisticated weapons to Syria and Iran, his newspaper said Tuesday.
Prosecutors have opened an inquest into the death of Ivan Safronov, a military affairs writer for the daily Kommersant who died Friday in what some media said could have been murder.
Kommersant reported that Safronov told his editors he would write a story about Russian plans to sell weapons to Iran and Syria via Belarus, but they said he had not yet submitted the article.
Kommersant said Safronov recently told colleagues that he had been warned he would face a criminal investigation on charges of revealing state secrets if he reported allegations that Russia had struck a deal to supply highly advanced Iskander missiles to Syria. If confirmed, such a contract would upset the balance of forces in the Mideast and likely anger Israel and the United States.
Safronov did not say where the warning came from, according to Kommersant, but he had repeatedly been questioned in the past by the Federal Security Service or FSB, which suspected him of divulging state secrets in his reports. The FSB is the main successor agency to the KGB.
Research Credit: Treason Holdings
“…such a contract would upset the balance of forces in the Mideast and likely anger Israel and the United States.”
Another glorious example of “AP style” and the semantic nightmare that is the mainstream press. Exactly how is the “balance” of forces in the Levant arranged again?
Let us review:
Nuclear warheads
Syria = 0
Israel = unknown (est. 200+, search “Dimona” if tragically underinformed)
This is how our friends at AP define balance. Of course, I’ve been bashing my forehead against this particular brick wall for about twenty-five years now, and by my own estimate perhaps 1 in 100 Americans can even see past such subtle brainwashing techniques.
Dimona – Israeli Nuclear reactor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf39qkvwOhU
Wow, you were not kidding…
Never underestimate the gullibility of the average American, hon. I’d say you’re still wearing rose-colored glasses if you had written “perhaps 1 in 1000”.
Quite right Pook. Being one of those Americans (said the boy from Seattle), but definitely not average (whatever that might mean), my “actual” number is much higher (high five-to-low-six figure range) than either of us seem to be willing to state aloud for public consumption… =]
In my case, they’re rose-lensed ski goggles, which do an excellent job of keeping tht wind out of my eyes during any high-speed manoeuvers.
One of those jukes was my own offshore launch, clearing out of the U.S.S.A. back in 2002 with my own non-native partner and wife to the rural fringes of Germany. I was ready to bolt in 1997, but like Kevin and his Kiwi frau we stayed on to pad our accounts.
By 2001, I began to feel like I couldn’t even open my mouth without wondering when my complimentary one-way ticket to occupied Cuba on Air America would arrive with a bullet. I don’t look that good in orange anyway.
With one eye over my shoulder I would carefully dissent among select groups or around certain individuals, pointing out the basics of the Zinn/Galeano version of imperial history. All of which fell on largely dead ears, even among the so-called “liberal”, anti-war set — nearly all of whom were still plugged into the brainwashing box.
So many expensive university educations, so little actual knowledge or wisdom. My feelings about “higher education” echo those of Frank Herbert — who also lasted about a year, and described the sensation as akin to a cafeteria lunch line.
When history’s latest Great Charade finally went down in D.C. & NYC, it shocked my more change-averse wife into action, and departure planning went into high gear. Can you say liquidation sale?
Unlike the unfortunate Russian journalist atop the topic here, my sense of survival trumps any sense of duty to the ridiculous concepts that underpin the nation-state or any burning desire to speak truth to power. One thing history speaks clearly to the attentive reader is that pointing accusing fingers at those serving the interests [of elite capital] is one of the fastest ways to a free diving lesson — without an O2 tank.