Sunday, October 17, 2004

The Brainwashing Will Begin

The brainwashing will begin, to persuade us that this "enemy court" is a waste of time because those who are pure have nothing to fear and those making all the noise must be impure. In every town and village of Russia there are those with whom scores remain to be settled among the police, the FSB secret police, the mayors and governors sliding down the greasy pole of power. Time to get rid of enemies at that level, too.

The authorities are so afraid of us. Every age has its own characteristics. Russia in Brezhnev's time was cynically demented. Yeltsin's reign was a time for casting your net wide and seeing how much you could catch. Now it is the Age of Putin, an era of cowardice, and the more afraid he becomes, the more he tightens the screws. Cowards cannot counter terrorism. That is something only the resolute and the intelligent can do.


Anna Politkovskaya, writing in the Sunday Times.

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