That journalists
managed to find all these inconsistencies
with the suspects’ passports and cover stories just shows that the Russians
intended them to find them. An experienced spy agency could not have
been so sloppy.
So why is Putin doing
this? They could have all just said nothing instead of having this preposterous
Marx Brothers sketch interview on RT (transcript in English here)
which the Washington
Post thinks backfired. But did it backfire, or was not believing it the
original intent?
I remember years
ago, as a foreign student in the USSR, I often wondered how was it
possible that the USSR had such primitive propaganda and was it not clear that
so many Soviets would not believe it?
But then I was told
that I was missing the point. Of course many Soviets did not believe Soviet
propaganda and the authorities knew that they did not believe it. But what the
authorities meant was this: we know that you do not believe what we are
saying and you know that we know that - but there is nothing you can do
about that! In other words, the authorities were demonstrating
their sheer power over the populace, - and that was the actual goal of the
propaganda.
So is Putin doing the
same today? Giving the finger to the West? Demonstrating the powerlessness
of the West?
