I do not think that the interception of a Ryanair flight to detain Roman Protasevich in Belarus is a travesty. <\/p>\n
I’m less concerned about this than the fact that once again, the US foreign policy apparatus, having confronted a broad based opposition to a despot, always seems to choose Neo-Nazi assholes<\/a>. <\/p>\n I’m not a fan of our US regime change operations, but I wonder why these efforts always seem to pick Nazis. <\/p>\n It seems that the US State Security Apparatus has been very careless for a very long time: <\/p>\n<\/p>\n There is more to say about the Ryanair incident in Belarus<\/a> and the arrest of the ‘regime change’ operative Roman Protasevich. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n We will start with the latter.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The sympathetic portraits of Protasevich in the New York Times<\/i><\/a> and in the Guardian<\/i><\/a> are only of interest for what they leave out. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n FOIA Research<\/i> and The Canadafiles<\/i> have very well sourced<\/a> and way more complete<\/a> pieces on him. They link to a mountain of evidence in form of social media postings, photos and videos which support their findings. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n From those we learn that Protasevich has long been a member of the fascist “Young Front” militia of Belarus. He has fought alongside the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine’s post-Maidan civil war. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Neither the NYT<\/i> nor the Guardian<\/i> mention Proasevich’s ideological position or his involvement with the neo-nazis of Azov. The London Times<\/i> had originally reported that Protasevich was involved with Azov but later silently removed<\/a> that passage from its report. <\/span><\/p>\n Another point missing from ‘western’ media is that Protasevich has long been on the payroll of various ‘western’ government financed propaganda media<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If this were an isolated case, I’d put it down to someone being lazy, and not doing a proper background check, but this happens over, and over, and over, and over again, so I have to conclude it’s deliberate policy.<\/p>\n This is worse than a crime, it’s a mistake, and it raises an obvious question:<\/p>\n\n