Paul Goble of Window on Eurasia, a former State Department official and scholar (see a bio on his newly syndicated column on the Moscow Times), discusses how the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky should be viewed from a rule of law perspective. Goble describes the second trial as “much worse than the first,” and is an example of “the use of state power to punish opponents of the regime,” which if allowed to continue, “would be the functional equivalent of the Reichstag fire.“
We met with Goble on the morning of April 10th, 2009 in Washington DC as part of a new video series with various Russia experts, and we plan to upload numerous other segments of our discussion in the near future.
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2 Comments
Mr Goble often speaks of the Shoa , Weimar , Nazi regime when he speaks of Russia .There’s an academic expression for that : ” Reductio ad Hiterum ” .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_HitlerumIt’s the zero level of argumentation and looks much more like a bar shelf discussion than an academic analysis.
Daniel, if you are arguing that the Khodorkovsky trial is reasonable, fair, apolitical, and featuring normal due process, you going to have to cite more evidence.Paul Goble is arguing that the destruction of rule of law in this case is so severe that it is the equivalent of the reichstag fire – a point of no return for Russia to be a country with a real justice system.I agree with him.