Why allowing Russia to host the Olympics was a mistake

Here’s a question we should have asked ourselves about 10 years ago: Should countries that support state sponsors of terror, give asylum to traitors who leak national security information and commit human rights abuses be rewarded with hosting the Olympics?

According to the International Olympic Committee, the United Nations of sports, of course they should.

The IOC famously awarded the games to Soviet Russia during the Cold War as a gesture of outreach. As a result, 65 nations were so disgusted they boycotted the Moscow Summer Olympics in 1980.

Now witness the Winter Olympics unfolding in supposedly post-Soviet Russia, in a spectacle that has yielded a multitude of embarrassing missteps.

Russia has so much self-induced inner turmoil that the Sochi Olympics are being manned by at least 40,000 law enforcement personnel to prevent attacks by Muslim and Ukrainian groups. Security forces included Siberian Regional Command troops and a regiment of Cossacks with tunics, fur hats and swords. An aerial squadron with defense rockets patrols the skies above Sochi, while gunboats guard the Black Sea. Visitors must pass through security checkpoints with X-ray machines, metal detectors and explosives scanners.  President Vladimir Putin has imposed draconian restrictions on protests, including numerous “controlled” and “forbidden” areas where citizens may not gather. Journalists have reported patrolmen marching past their hotel rooms with machine guns.

Sounds like a recipe for fun.

In addition, the Olympic Village has been haunted by grimy cats and dogs wandering the streets — at least the ones the government hasn’t killed. Russian police have been cracking down on demonstrators protesting the country’s anti-gay laws — laws that led influential Western leaders to skip the games.

Adding to the air of camaraderie, Russian sports announcers have been openly propagandizing against the U.S. in an egregious, unprecedented display of anti-Western bias. Commentators have spotlighted American athletes with such welcoming remarks as “Show them your crooked legs, Beth,” “Little legs, little arms, and ugly,” “I’m watching for her to mess up again,” “She messed up really well.  This is so good, she got another deduction of points,” “Show these Americans how it should be done,” and “We won’t listen to the American anthem, there’s no point.”

And a Russian figure skater who lit the Olympic torch has refused to apologize for a racist photo of the Obamas she had tweeted.

Surprisingly, the West hasn’t cottoned to this charm offensive: TV ratings are down from the Vancouver Olympics four years ago, and athletes are competing in stadiums filled with empty seats.

Look, it’s perfectly okay that Sochi, and perhaps every other city in Russia, has neither the infrastructure nor the temperament to host an international event with millions of athletes and spectators. Seriously, there are countless other countries that aren’t capable of hosting the Olympics, either. But at least most of them don’t harbor phony assertions of being free, civilized nations and model, upstanding world powers.