The Russians are angry with us.
“A criminal case has been opened against U.S. citizen Tom Rogan,” Russian official Svetlana Petrenko stated on Thursday about our commentary page writer, “who published an article titled ‘Ukraine should blow up Putin’s Crimea bridge’ calling for the destruction of the Crimean Bridge by bombing it.”
This summary is accurate enough. But then the Russians get a little wacky.
“There are signs of public calls for terrorist activity on Russian territory, which is a crime under Article 205 of the Criminal Code.”
“The investigation has appointed a comprehensive psycho-linguistic examination; investigative actions are being conducted to establish all the circumstances around the crime.”
The Russian Embassy called Rogan’s piece “incitement to commit terrorist acts and murder,” although the piece stated that bombing the bridge could and should be carried out in such a way that no humans are harmed.
“Ukraine should now destroy elements of the bridge,” Rogan wrote about the bridge Russia built from Russia to Crimea, which is rightly a part of Ukraine.
The opinion piece was not, by any reasonable interpretation of the words, advocacy of murder. We think the Russians know that. Murder isn’t blowing up a bridge that is mostly closed to vehicular traffic. Murder on a bridge would be, say, waiting for a man like Putin critic Boris Nemtsov to be in the middle of a bridge where he can take no cover, then descending upon him, shooting him, and leaving him to bleed out while a getaway car carries off the shooter.
Blowing up parts of a bridge is something different. It’s destruction of property. Our writers don’t normally advocate destruction of bridges, but then again, most bridges aren’t built as part of an illegal armed invasion of another sovereign nation. Crimea is rightly Ukrainian. Russia controls it through illegal force, and this bridge is an effort to cement that control, thus setting the stage for further efforts toward “reunifying” the Soviet Union. Estonia, Moldova, and other neighbors of Russia who have been menaced know all too well Putin’s designs.
So what the Russians call advocacy of murder and terrorism is nothing of the sort. Rogan was offering an invaded country advice on how to defend itself. This is perfectly within the bounds of fair commentary.
But we feel here that we owe our Russian readers an explanation. Rogan’s article presumed a baseline familiarity with the notions of free speech and a free press, and perhaps he did not fully consider that some of our readers in Moscow might need a primer on these issues. So let us provide one here.
America’s Constitution has a Bill of Rights, the first article of which establishes both the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press as fundamental rights. That means that Americans are free to criticize our own government and candidates for office as well as Russia’s government. Americans like Rogan are also free to advocate foreign policy actions to any government they choose, including our own government, Russia’s, or any other country’s. Americans are free to advocate striking Syria, for instance, or not striking Syria. Americans are free to advocate diplomatic responses to Russia’s aggression or military responses to it.
Whereas Russia’s embassy has called Rogan’s piece “terrorist propaganda” (on what propaganda is, we suspect the Russians do not need a primer), it is an opinion on how one sovereign nation ought to respond to aggression that is part of an invasion. In America, the right to express that opinion to whomever we want is protected.
Unfortunately, Russians who try to share their opinions freely with large audiences find themselves targeted by campaigns of government harassment, extortion, and even assassination. That’s because Putin fears nothing as much as he fears Russians who can think for themselves. Eventually, they will start wondering what their nation has to show for all of his recent territorial aggression, because it isn’t much.
Consider the results he’s gotten: Russia’s population and economy are both in decline. This should come as no surprise, considering that Putin’s government actually places people on its payroll to hurl pointless and juvenile threats at our writers. Meanwhile, his obsolete playbook of pursuing wealth through territorial expansion has made Russians significantly poorer. It has also blackened their reputation throughout the world, because it isn’t just any government that would shoot down a civilian passenger aircraft with hundreds of passengers on board.
Until Russia pursues openness to the world, establishes rule of law, and makes peace with its neighbors and its current status in the world, it will always be a washed-up superpower with a chip on its shoulder and a lot more nuclear weapons than sense.
Related:
• Ukraine should blow up Putin’s Crimea bridge
