Navalny’s Emergency Hospitalization Sparks Anti-Putin, Anti-Trump Attacks, Per British Playbook
Aug. 21, 2020 (EIRNS)—The emergency hospitalization in Omsk of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, a darling of “Western democracy” regime-changers, is now the cause of fierce anti-Putin, anti-Trump diatribes, fitting the profile of a classic British Empire playbook setup. That is the case, whatever and whoever may be behind Navalny’s sudden illness yesterday, the facts of which are not readily known.
On Aug. 20, Navalny took ill, and reportedly became unconscious aboard a plane from Tomsk, in eastern Russia, to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, where Navalny was taken to the Omsk Emergency Hospital No. 1. He is reportedly in a coma in intensive care, and there are now two main conflicting reports about the cause of his condition. The hospital physician spokesman has referred to a metabolic problem and a drop in blood sugar. Navalny’s wife and spokesmen accuse Putin of poisoning him.
A German aircraft is on standby at Omsk to take Navalny to Berlin for treatment, provided by a German-based NGO. Omsk doctors at first did not permit Navalny to leave, saying his condition is too unstable for the trip. That is subject to change. Mrs. Navalny has written to President Vladimir Putin directly, demanding that her husband be moved. She charges that keeping her husband in Omsk is just to wait three or more days so the poison will no longer be detectable.
Within hours of the onset of Navalny’s illness, came loud denunciations of Putin and Trump. So far, President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien has been relatively restrained, saying that the situation bears watching. But the call has gone up from war party types of any stripe, saying that Putin poisoned Navalny, and asking, “where is the U.S.” on this. Former Obama Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has an op-ed out in today’s Washington Post, headlined, “A Russian Dissident Is Fighting for His Life. Where Is the U.S.?” McFaul needs no proof, insisting, “Putin has a talent for deniability. Yet even if the ex-KGB officer who now runs Russia didn’t directly order a hit on Navalny, he is still to blame. It is Putin who has empowered intelligence officers and created permissive conditions for vigilantes.”
Hillary Clinton, former Obama Secretary of State, was unhinged last night on MSNBC. To Rachel Maddow’s question about the “Navalny poisoning,” Clinton said that heart attacks and poisonings are “business as usual in Putin’s Russia,” and the U.S. government should “speak out publicly.” She said that there is “no doubt—he has been poisoned” and that Putin’s Russia is the “kind of regime that Donald Trump supports.” Secretary of State Pompeo should be acting, she demands. There is “moral bankruptcy” in the Trump government. There is a “clear and present danger that Trump poses.”
