Saturday
Paul Joyal, an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin has been shot in the USA. Does this remind you of anything?
Of course it could just be another random street crime, but if not and this turns out to be another (hopefully just attempted) assassination of an overseas political enemy living in the west, then it is clearly well past time to start loudly demanding the state does one of the few legitimate things it taxes us for... protecting us all from the armed servants of a foreign government.
Could it be time to start threatening Putin in the most literal way? If he keeps killing people in the west then not only should Russian embassies be closed forthwith, those expensive security services we pay for should start motivating the Russian security services to behave via whatever means come to mind. I can certainly think of a few.
I will watch with interest to see what information comes out about this case. It could, after all, have just been a robbery.
It will be interesting to hear whether there are any of the "we didn't do it and the guy deserved whatever he got" comments from Moscow.
Posted by spokesrider at March 4, 2007 07:23 AM
Putin is a former KGB officer, what do you expect? The fact that nobody in the west has seemed the least bit bothered with this for 8 years still astounds me. How is this different from a former Nazi SS officer being elected presidet of Germany? The whole western world would (rightly) be out-raged. If there would have been an equivalent to the Nuremburg trials after the dissolution of the USSR Putin would likely have been hanged. Instead he's the leader of one of the biggest countries in the world and nobody cares.
Posted by DS at March 4, 2007 03:19 PM
I think the header on this should read "Another Putin assassination attempt" since nobody was actually killed.
The guy did get shot in the groin however, by two guys in his driveway, which is a bit suspicious.
Posted by Adam at March 4, 2007 04:46 PM
"I think the header on this should read "Another Putin assassination attempt" since nobody was actually killed."
I think someone's not getting any Christmas bonuses....
Posted by michael farris at March 4, 2007 05:25 PM
I am looking forward to an explanation from Neil Clark or our Russian friend, "Stephan". Come on fellas.
Posted by Johnathan Pearce at March 4, 2007 06:04 PM
The local police seem to think it is nothing more than street crime, but I don't think any information as to why they think this has been released. Bird Dog is right in that it seems odd that that mere theives would go through the trouble of attempted murder seeing as how that only brings unwanted attention (the gunshot, and the subsequent investigation that would never occur if it were a simple mugging).
The real question is: was anything taken from this guy? It would make even less sense if they shot him and didn't get any loot. On the flip side, you would think a professional assassin would finish the job before scampering off.
Either way Putin is a very happy man tonight. Even if he had nothing to do with it, his enemies will still fear that he did.
Posted by Quenton at March 4, 2007 07:23 PM
It is amazing how incredibly naive so many people are, how they can immediately assume Russia wasn't behind it. Then again, most people in the West don't understand Russia very well. Life is extremely cheap in Russia, they think nothing of killing someone. I used to work in Russia and know how a lot of people think over there.
I'm also surprised there isn't more outrage. It's one thing when they do it to other Russians- still wrong of course. But this is much worse, they come to our country and do this. I can't believe there isn't more outrage and action.
Posted by Russian expert at March 4, 2007 07:45 PM
The task of investigating that seems appropriate for the US Department of State.
Does anyone know where they are?
Posted by John J. Coupal at March 5, 2007 04:04 AM
Sayeth DS:
Putin is a former KGB officer, what do you expect? The fact that nobody in the west has seemed the least bit bothered with this for 8 years still astounds me.
There's been no shortage of bother. The problem is, what do we do about it? Putin's continued existence on the throne is a problem, but not one able to be resolved at present.
Jonathan Pearce:
I am looking forward to an explanation from Neil Clark or our Russian friend, "Stephan". Come on fellas.
What's the Russian word for "Astroturf?"
The task of investigating that seems appropriate for the US Department of State.
Except they basically have no jurisdiction. Violent crimes in the US almost never fall under Federal jurisdiction. As a practical matter, the Maryland locals probably have a much more-capable team of investigators for this sort of thing. It's relatively uncommon for Federals to have any experience with violent crime. That being said, there are reports that the FBI is now involved.
Sunfish Analyzes the Shooting:
Not much information available yet. One anonymous source calls this an ordinary street robbery. I'm guessing that a PhysSec professional would probably pick a safe neighborhood where street robbery just doesn't happen. It's easy to research neighborhoods, and a good idea before buying a house, and a professional would know to do just that. Maybe this legitimately is a robbery, but I would guess that street crime is, um, anomalous in this area.
So, how would robbers select Joyal's neighborhood? And how did they select him? (And how would one explain that last answer to someone who doesn't believe in coincidence?)
Lastly: firearms are fairly uncommon in street crime. Sure, we have them all over the damn place, this being America and all, but any street hood would have to know that actually shooting someone would cause police to take a deep and lasting interest in this case. A robbery attempt where deadly force is not used will easily end up in the "Open/Inactive" file in two weeks, month at most, if not cleared before then.
Posted by Sunfish at March 5, 2007 08:03 AM
If the assailants were white, we're probably looking at Russian involvement.
Posted by Zhang Fei at March 5, 2007 02:20 PM
