[ExI] war is peace

[Frank McElligott]

The largest exporter of oil is Russia, more than the Saudi's.

Yet there was only one bidder, my my a dream auction.

Is this the real world we live in, or are we back in the days of sherwood forest with Robin hood and the sheriff.

The Wizard of Russia 
By Michael Bohm
Michael Bohm is opinion page editor of The Moscow Times.

A year after former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested on fraud charges, Baikal Finance Group ­ a mysterious company with a share capital of only 10,000 rubles ($330) ­ acquired Yukos' largest subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz, for $9.3 billion in an "auction" consisting of only one bidder. After Yuganskneftegaz was sold four days later to state-controlled Rosneft, Andrei Illarionov, economic adviser to then-President Vladimir Putin, called the state expropriation of Yukos "the Biggest Scam of the Year" in his annual year-end list of Russia's worst events. When Illarionov announced his 2009 list in late December, he should have added another award and given it to Putin: "the Best PR Project of the Decade."

The Yukos scam was "legal nihilism" par excellence, but most Russians have a completely different version of the event. The Kremlin's 180-degree PR spin on the Yukos nationalization should be a case study for any nation aspiring to create a Ministry of Truth. As Putin explained in his December call-in show, the Yukos affair was not government expropriation at all, but a way to give money that Yukos "stole from the people" back to the people by helping them buy new homes and repair old ones. Putin, it turns out, is also Russia's Robin Hood. War is peace. Ignorance is strength.  

Oh by the way Obama's job program is going to cost 100 billion, again another robin hood:)

Frank
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