Though terrorizing Russian teenage figure skating sensation Kamila Valieva and cancelling Russian Paralympians from the international stage both spit in the face of the spirit of Greece’s original Olympics, they are in full harmony with how NATO’s Mafiosi and their political commissars regard their lucrative sports’ empire. To the Mafia, excluding the world’s largest country from all sports is strictly business.

Though Valieva might yet revolutionize figure skating the way Olga Korbut, the legendary Belarusian athlete, revolutionized gymnastics, she is instead being bullied out of contention, much the way Ronaldo was shell shocked in the 1998 World Cup by the same star-spangled fascists who despise youth’s starry-eyed idealism.

Russian weight lifter (and frequent Donbass visitor) Maryana Naumova best articulated this youthful idealism in this incredible video where, whilst wearing the jacket he signed for her years earlier, she explains how much Arnold The Terminator Schwarzenegger inspired her to greatness when she was an obviously starry-eyed and star-struck teenage weight lifting wonder.

Schwarzenegger, of course, was a notorious drug cheat, as were Lance Armstrong, Ben Johnson, Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, Tyson Gay and literally hundreds of other Americans and Canadians. As was Rambo, when he squared up to the unoriginally named Ivan in Rocky 1V.

Although The Onion sarcastically wrote that Rocky’s victories in all four movies should have been overturned because Sylvester Stallone was, like Arnie, just another proven serial American drug cheat, The Onion misses the key point that the spirit of Rambo epitomizes the fiction that is American Sporting Exceptionalism.

America’s Rambo spirit has nothing to do with sport as the ancient Olympians, Olga Korbut, Kamila Valieva, Maryana Naumova, Novak Djokovic, Max Schmeling, Teófilo Stevenson, Muhammad Ali, Peter Norman or those hundreds of anonymous heroes who put in tens of thousands of hours training Russia’s Paralympians understand it.

It is, unfortunately, how Qatar’s leaders and those Bojos they have cajoled to host the 2022 World Cup in the middle of a desert in the middle of Europe’s football season, understand it. Boris Johnson, who likes to flatten Japanese schoolchildren to relive his cringe-worthy Eton days, believes that Ukraine should get a bye into the World Cup at the expense of Wales and Scotland, where Johnson’s Tory Party are thoroughly loathed. Johnson’s vision of sport has nothing to do with the dreams of Japanese, Welsh, English, Scottish or Ukrainian children and everything to do with the Tories’ personal enrichment and advancement.

There are, in essence, two camps in sport. In Big Business’ corner lurk Boris Johnson, the USA, Qatar, and an army of corrupt sporting officials, who have been bribed, bullied and cajoled into instituting a Russophobic apartheid system more complete and systematic than that which pertained against apartheid era South Africa.

In the other corner, with Kamila Valieva and Russia’s Paralympians, tower true sporting legends like Peter Norman, the third athlete pictured in the famous 1968 Olympics Black Power salute photograph, which occurred during the medal ceremony for the 200-metre event. Not only did Norman wear the badge of the Olympic Project for Human Rights in support of fellow athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith but the idea for Carlos and Smith to each wear a glove was Norman’s. Not only was Norman never selected to represent Australia again but, portending today’s Russian athletes, he was the only Australian Olympic medal winner not invited to attend the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Chelsea Mitchell, “the fastest girl in Connecticut”, is one of legions of female American athletes, who can empathise with Kamila Valieva as she is being trampled under the same profit-driven jackboot that tried to squash Valieva’s spirit. Mitchell’s issue, that she must compete against and lose sporting scholarships to dudes who declare themselves to be women, is analogous to saying Mike Tyson should have fought the winner of the Ali-Fraser 1971 fight, the fight that paused the Vietnam war, when Tyson was only 4 years old.

Though it is an obvious nonsense, Bojo, Biden and their backroom boys in the Pentagon would be delighted with such a mismatch if it brought in the shekels, because blood, booty and self-adulation are their game. Their legacy is not that of the Greek Olympics but that of crudest Rome, of Gladiator where athletes exist only to boost Big Business’ bottom line and the egos of frauds like Bojo.

This is not about sport at all and it is not exclusively about Russia which will remain a sporting powerhouse forever. As this is, as always, about money, pure and simple, if Russia has to be sacrificed so be it, no biggie. And if wrestling and Naumova’s weight-lifting also have to make way for Hollywood’s more lucrative pseudo sports, then hasta la vista baby.

Expelling Russia from weight lifting and wrestling will do much more than give Russia’s Naumovas a bloodied nose. As those two sports trace their lineage right back to the original Olympics, they should have pride of place in today’s games. But, even though the USA excels in both, so too does Russia and, more importantly, so also do almost every single country from Bulgaria in the West to Korea in the East. Despite weight-lifting and wrestling being the pre-eminent sports in most Central Asian countries, Wall St’s agents, by secret ballot of course, want them banished with more photogenic games like Norwegian women playing sports in thongs and brassieres too small to do what they are designed to do replacing them for click bait, prime time ads and profits.

Valieva, Mitchell and today’s other sporting greats best fix up their spare bedrooms as plenty of redundant athletes are coming their way. Horse-racing, not athletics or figure-skating, now sets the surreal pace, where Rambo and Rocky once led. Virtual horses and virtual jockeys running in pretend races are making real horses and real jockeys redundant as Paddy Power, William Hill and similar companies have beguiled their customers into embracing Big Tech’s lifeless rabbit hole.

Roy Keane, himself a high profile victim of NATO’s sporting Mafia, gave perhaps the best advice when he addressed children in the North East of Ireland. When asked how to excel at sports, Keane told them to climb trees, as all children should, to enjoy all sports, as all children should, but also to first throw their X boxes and other electronic toys into the rubbish bin, as all children also should. Therein lies to key to sports’ future; a return to basics by Russia, Central Asians, Africans and other well-adjusted folk, and fruitless years wasted bribing Norwegian women and their American transsexual fellows into throwing beach balls at one another, whilst wearing skimpy thongs, betting on pretend horses, sporting Ukrainian flags and congratulating obese British Prime Ministers for pulverizing starry-eyed Japanese children.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has clearly shown a lack of adeptness at her job. This was exhibited during a February 10 press conference she had with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. There’s also a believable leak of a gaffe Truss made in another interaction with Lavrov.

Western mass media has been generally lax towards her on the job shortcomings, as she holds a key foreign policy position for a country having some global clout (albeit decreased from a previous time). The comparative treatment accorded to Russian teen figure skating sensation Kamila Valieva, her fellow Russian Olympians and their country, is another example of gross arrogance, ignorance, hypocrisy and bigotry.

Bruce Arthur’s Toronto Star articles of February 9,10 and 11 articles are quite collapsible when factually challenged. A further low point is evident with Tony Kornheiser’s February 10 bigoted comments on ESPN’s Pardon The Interruption. There’re numerous other Western mass media takes, having the same slants as Arthur and Kornheiser.

Arthur spins the inaccurate image of an oppressive Russia downplaying the use of performing enhancing drugs. Two different Russian media venues reported Valieva testing positive for a banned substance, before this was formally acknowledged. Within a short time span, other Russian media outlets followed up on the coverage of the claim.

At the time of his February 9 and 10 articles, Arthur couldn’t be sure whether Valieva had taken the banned drug Trimetazidine. Arthur omits some facets involved with getting tested for that drug. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) notes that a false positive result for Trimetazidene is quite possible when taking Lomerizine (used to treat migraines), which isn’t banned. Elsewhere, it has been noted how it’s possible for Trimetazdine to be included as an ingredient in a non-banned drug.

Before the rescheduled 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Russian hurdler Sergey Subchenkov was cleared of wrongdoing, related to the initial misinterpretation of a test result. It should go without saying that Valieva and her entourage, have every right to challenge the doping claim made against her.

Upon a further CAS review, Faktulina and some other Russian athletes were found to have been wrongfully charged with a doping infraction. In a move serving as a kind of middle finger to the likes of Arthur, the reinstated Faktulina was selected as the Russian Olympic Committee flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

In his February 10 article, Arthur uncritically mentions the drug cheat Yulia Stepanova, who got busted for taking a banned substance. Thereafter, Stepanova achieved fame for ratting out two of her fellow Russian 800 meter runners. Along with her ex-husband, Stepanova appeared in a German TV aired propaganda film, which made a broad and unsubstantiated claim against Russian track and field athletes.

The gold medal contending Subchenkov was banned from the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, along with the legendary Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva. The World Athletics body governing track and field, maintains a decidedly biased stance against Russians. There’s a discriminatory quota policy on the number of Russians allowed to compete at major international track and field events.

Subchenkov and Isinbayeva were never found to have cheated unlike Stepanova. Yet, World Athletics head Sebastian Coe lobbied for Stepanova to compete at Rio, unlike Subchenkov and Isinbayeva.

In his February 11 piece, it’s no surprise to see Arthur uncritically reference the US sports legal politico Travis Tygart. The latter has repeatedly advocated a blanket ban on all Russian Olympic athletes.

At the highest level of athletic competition, Russians continue to participate and excel in noticeable numbers, while being probably the most drug tested of athletes. It stands to reason that if they were so guilty of cheating, they’d be caught en masse and penalized. This very point explains why most Russians and some non-Russians understandably see a politicized farce influencing the “Russian Olympic Committee” (in place of Russia) designation and Olympic banning of Russia’s flag and anthem.

In 2010, Kornheiser was suspended by ESPN, for making remarks about how his colleague Hannah Storm looks in her wardrobe. I’ll be pleasantly surprised to see Kornheiser getting reprimanded for his bigoted outburst against Russians.

Kornheiser’s collective description of Russians as cheats brings to mind The New York Times’ Juliet Macur distinguishing between “clean athletes and Russians“. As I noted: “No NYT journo would write a bigoted comparison that differentiates between law abiding citizens and African-American, followed by a utilization of crime statistics as ‘proof’ for such a presented contrast.”

Whatever the outcome, Valieva’s situation is more the exception than norm. In the US, Black and Latin-American athletes have influenced networks like ESPN to be more understanding of their concerns. I’m sure that many of the patriotically proud Russian NHL players and their brethren in North America, are justifiably disgusted with the aforementioned coverage.

eurasiareview.com

Despite the worldwide boycott movement against awarding the 1936 Olympics to Berlin, they finally took place, bigger and more brilliant than ever before. Dictator Hitler stood with them in the summit of his international recognition.

The crimes of Hitler’s government were internationally known since the beginning of 1933. They began immediately after the seizure of power in January 1933 with the arrest and murder of political opponents and their incarceration in concentration camps. This mainly affected communists, social democrats and other leftists. All parties except the NSDAP were banned. After May 1, 1933, the trade unions were smashed and expropriated.

The Nazis excluded Jews, Sinti and leftists from sports clubs. The two Jewish sports associations, Maccabi and Schild – they had about 350 member clubs in Germany in 1935 with a total of 40,000 members – were no longer allowed to use sports facilities. It was also clear that there should be no Jews on the German Olympic team.

Alternative Games in Barcelona

In 1931, two years before Hitler came to power, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had awarded the 1936 Olympics to Germany – Winter and Summer Games.

In 1933, after Hitler came to power, only two governments drew consequences: the Soviet government and the Republican government elected in Spain in 1931. For 1936, they prepared the second People’s Olympics in Barcelona with workers’ sports federations from 17 countries; the first People’s Olympics had taken place here in 1931. But when the 2,000 participants arrived in July 1936, the fascist coup of General Francisco Franco began, supported by supplies from U.S. corporations such as Texaco, General Motors and Chrysler – despite the neutrality decided by the U.S. Congress.

Sports federations from several European countries called for a boycott of the Berlin Olympics. The largest athletic association at the time, Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) in the U.S., under President Jeremiah Mahoney, also called for the boycott.

Alternative Jewish Games in New York and Tel Aviv

In May 1933, Rabbi Stephen Wise organized demonstrations in New York with the American Jewish Congress. The AAU organized a World Festival of Workers’ Athletes there. It was supported by Jewish civic leaders, including New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, New York State Governor Herbert Lehman, and the Jewish Labor Committee and the Anti-Nazi League. But the major Jewish organizations American Jewish Committee and B’nai B’rith held back on criticizing the Nazis. On August 15 and 16, 1936, the World Festival in New York drew only 400 participants.

In 1935, the second Jewish sports games, the Maccabiad, had taken place in Tel Aviv, with 1,350 participants from 27 countries. Most of the athletes, however, did not return to their home countries because of the advance of fascism in Europe – in Spain, Hungary, Austria, and Poland, for example.

Alternative Winter Spartaics in Norway

In Norway, leftist organizations put on a Winter Spartakiade in 1936, with athletes from the Soviet Union, Sweden, and Finland. But the world press, such as the New York Times, reported only from the simultaneous Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

In Austria, six of the eight Jewish athletes, including swimming champion Judith Deutsch, refused to participate in the Berlin Games: They were banned for life; Judith Deutsch emigrated to Tel Aviv as late as 1936.

But there were several Jewish U.S. stars, such as weightlifter David Mayer and Samuel Balter of the winning basketball team, and sprinters Samuel Staller and Marty Glickman, who wanted to be in Berlin. Harold Abrahams, a Jewish gold medalist in the 100 meters at the 1924 Games in Paris, lobbied for Berlin as president of the British Athletic Association along with Defense Minister Thomas Inskip.

The IOC: Nobles, Generals, Entrepreneurs

The organizers of the traditional games proved more powerful. Berlin became the venue.

The 1936 International Olympic Committee (IOC) included princes from the monarchies of Denmark, Japan, and Liechtenstein. Colonels, generals, field marshals, and grand admirals came from Germany, Italy, Poland, South Africa, Yugoslavia, and the Netherlands.

Both IOC members from the United States were entrepreneurs – Chicago construction tycoon Avery Brundage and real estate speculator William Garland. From France came Marquis de Polignac, head of the Pommery & Greno champagne cellars. From Germany came Karl Ritter von Halt, a member of the board of the Deutsche Bank, a member of the NSDAP and of the SS circle of friends Heinrich Himmler who was fond of donations. From Sweden came Sigfrid Edström, head of the electronics company ASEA.

The noblemen and their families, such as the British IOC members Clarence Napier Bruce, 3rd Baron Aberdare of Duffryn (=Lord Aberdare) and the 6th Marquess of Exeter (=Lord Burghley), were furthermore not only owners of large estates, but were also involved in companies. This was also the case with Baron Henri de Baillet-Latour, the president of the IOC; he belonged to one of the ten richest families in Belgium, which held shares in the largest bank, Société Générale, and other companies.

Decision mainly by the U.S.

The IOC and National Olympic Committees stifled the boycott movements. Quick commitments for the Games came from the fascist Axis powers of Italy and Japan, as well as from the fascist-friendly ruled states of Finland, Poland, Hungary, South Africa, Portugal, Romania, and Austria.

The 1932 Los Angeles Olympics had set new standards because of the number of participants, the records, the size of the stadium and the other modern sports facilities. The participation or non-participation of the successful sporting nation of the United States – “the world’s greatest sporting powerhouse ” – would determine the significance of the 1936 Games.

The president of the American Olympic Committee (AOC) was Avery Brundage. His company owed its rise to government contracts during World War 1. He was the largest developer and real estate investor in Chicago. He had skyscrapers, luxury apartments and hotels built, including a manufacturing plant for Ford.

President of the U.S. Olympic Committee: ardent anti-Semite

Brundage admired Hitler and showed himself to be an avowed anti-Semite: “No Jews are allowed in my club in Chicago either. ” He saw the boycott movement as a “Jewish-Communist conspiracy. ” IOC President Baillet-Latour also supported Brundage’s anti-Semitism: “Jews usually start shouting before they have a real reason to do so,” he wrote to Brundage.

At the initiative of IOC President Baillet-Latour, Brundage was elected to the IOC. His U.S. colleague on the IOC, Charles Sherill, a brigadier general in World War 1, a lawyer in New York, and U.S. ambassador to Argentina and Turkey, was enthusiastic about fascism. In the New York Times on March 4, 1933, Sherrill, like other U.S. industrialists, praised Hitler as the best German politician. Likewise, Sherill had previously hailed Mussolini as the new statesman who could restore order in Europe with his system in place of the incompetent democracy.

Hitler Bribes the Founder of the Olympic Games

To keep the founder of the Olympic Games and honorary president of the IOC, Pierre de Coubertin in line, Hitler granted him an “honorary gift” of 10,000 Reichsmarks (about $100,000 today) shortly before the opening of the Games. Hitler had already offered him a life pension in 1935 if he supported the hosting of the Games in Berlin.

Swedish IOC members also played an important role in favor of Berlin. Clarence von Rosen, royal equerry married to a wealthy U.S. industrialist’s daughter, was in-law to Herman Goering’s wife Carin. Brother Eric von Rosen founded Sweden’s fascist movement, and Clarence joined in.13 The second Swedish IOC member was Sigfrid Edström: the head of the Swedish electronics company ASEA did good business with the German Reich.

Churchill for Berlin

Two British IOC members, Lords Aberdare and Burghley, also lobbied for Berlin. Sir Noel Curtis Bennet, who was in favor of boycott, found no support.14 Winston Churchill appeased: communism is worse than Hitler!

French Champagne King for Berlin

After the German Wehrmacht occupied the demilitarized Rhineland in March 1936, French sports officials called for a boycott of the Summer Games, including Marc Bellin de Coteau, president of the International Hockey Federation (HIF), and Jules Rimet, president of the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA). For France, however, IOC member and champagne king Marquis de Polignac tipped the scales. France’s ambassador in Berlin, André Francois-Poncet, a lobbyist for French heavy industry, had already enthusiastically welcomed the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Apartheid General for Berlin

Henry Nourse also had nothing against the Nazi regime, on the contrary. The IOC member from South Africa had distinguished himself as a lieutenant-colonel in the British colonial army under General Lord Kitchener during the Boer War (1899-1902): In concentration camps, Burian families and locals were starved to death, scorched earth tactics applied, and killing was indiscriminate. Nourse became the owner of South African gold and coal mines, where he was able to exploit blacks with state help – even before the formal legalization of apartheid after World War II.

None of them were swayed by the crimes of the Nazi regime, nor by the Nuremberg Race Laws passed in 1935, nor by Nazi Germany’s military support for Franco’s coup in the weeks leading up to the Games.

Mass enthusiasm and elite luxury

The Winter Games in the Alpine resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen took place undisturbed from February 6 to 16, 1936, while the Summer Games were held in Berlin from August 1 to 16, 1936.

At first, the Nazi newspapers Der Stürmer and the Völkischer Beobachter had agitated against Negroes and Jews, who had no place at the Olympics. But at the Winter Games in the Bavarian town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, just as in Berlin, all signs with “For Jews forbidden” were removed, the demonized “Negro music” jazz was briefly permitted, and swastika flags waved cosmopolitanly to the international audience.

Token Jews

The U.S. member of the IOC, Charles Sherill, recommended to Hitler in two personal meetings how a few token Jews on the German Olympic team might reassure the international public. The Nazis followed Sherill’s recommendation: two “half-Jews” were added to the German team as token jews: In addition to ice hockey star Rudi Ball, it was fencer Helene Mayer: outwardly she resembled the ideal image of the blond Aryan woman and lived in the USA. At the award ceremony, she gave the Hitler salute in the stadium.

The newly built Olympic Stadium with 100,000 seats – modeled on the equally large stadium for the 1932 Games in Los Angeles – was the largest in Europe. It was surrounded by a huge parade ground, an Olympic village, spacious sports facilities for the various disciplines and with art exhibitions.

Richard Strauss, Evangelical Church, Leni Riefenstahl, Coca Cola …

In 1936, the Nazis invented the torch relay from ancient Greek Olympia across Europe, which has been customary since then. 3075 runners carried the torch through five countries to Berlin. The final runner was only found after three rounds of judging: Running style, physique and posture, hair and eye color as well as political attitude – everything had to be right.

The world-famous composer Richard Strauss created the Olympic anthem. Hitler’s sculptor Arno Breker contributed the sculptures of naked Aryan athletes: The Winner, The Decathlete. The Protestant Church held the opening mass for the IOC in the Berlin Cathedral. The light domes of Hitler’s favorite architect Albert Speer, developed for the NDSAP party rallies, also shone above the stadium.

Fanfares accompanied Hitler’s arrival, fights and award ceremonies. For the first time, competitions were televised. Corporations like Coca Cola appeared as sponsors. The IOC commissioned Hitler’s favorite director Leni Riefenstahl to make the official Olympic film, which was also made with the help of motorized cameras – including underwater cameras – that were new at the time.

Goebbels: “Italian Night” on Aryanized Property

Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Field Marshal Hermann Göring vied for the favor of celebrities with lavish parties. Goebbels had an “Italian night” organized on his Aryanized property on Berlin’s Pfaueninsel (Isle of peacocks ).

Goering invited guests to his Prussian palace. At any one time, 1,000 guests were invited: Kings, European nobility, the diplomatic corps, the IOC, officials from the SS, NSDAP and the ministries, stars of stage and film, medal winners. Fireworks, dances with costumes from the ancient and Victorian eras were offered, fighter-bomber ace Ernst Udet showed his stunt tricks.

New York Times, Daily Express, Kölnische Zeitung

Hitler had declared that the games “strengthen the bonds of peace between nations. ” It was not only the German bourgeois media that were on Hitler’s course.

Thus the Kölnische Zeitung (It is still in the subtitle of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, the present successor newspaper) wrote: “The greatest celebration that the new Germany is giving to all the peace-loving peoples of the world.” The Anglo-Saxon press, which shaped “world opinion,” also chimed in: “Greatest sports show in history” (New York Times), “wonderful change in the thinking of the German people” (Daily Express, London).

Avery Brundage fulfills all of Hitler’s wishes

Already at its meeting in the Hotel Adlon at the beginning of the Games on August 1, 1936, the IOC decided: the Games for 1940 would be awarded to Tokyo – regardless of Japan’s imperialist expansion in Korea, China and Taiwan. In 1939, the IOC awarded the Winter Games to Germany again. Brundage and the IOC fulfilled all of Hitler’s wishes.

Because of the excellent, also economic relations with the USA, Hitler’s Germany wanted to present itself in Washington by a considerably enlarged embassy: None other than the contractor Brundage was to get the contract for the new building in Washington.

Roosevelt dismissed Ambassador Critical of the Nazis

In 1938, after the Games, the Roosevelt administration replaced its previous ambassador to Berlin, William Dodd, who had been critical of the Nazis, with Hugh Wilson, a Hitler admirer. The latter berated U.S. media as “Jewish-controlled” for occasionally being too critical of Germany’s treatment of Jews in the meantime.

Wilson, on the other hand, praised the Hitler government for working toward a “better future.” Hitler had “brought his people out of moral and economic despair and led them to pride and prosperity. ”

Churchill reiterated his appreciation of Hitler: “One can dislike Hitler and yet admire his patriotic achievement,” Churchill wrote in 1937. The dogged anti-Communist then worried whether Hitler might adopt the wrong tactics toward “Russia” and remain unsuccessful: “Will Hitler make the same mistake as Napoleon? ”

Churchill’s fear came true. Fighting and war in the same direction continued and continues to this day.

As the opening of the Olympic games in Beijing was approaching, some of the propaganda projects begun months and even years earlier came into sharper focus. We are alluding in particular to the Uyghur genocide farce and the bogus London proceedings under the auspices of former ICTY prosecutor Geoffrey Nice, staged to give the farce an aura of quasi-judicial sobriety.

It is, of course, not difficult to offer an analysis that turns out to be fundamentally correct whenever you are dealing with unimaginative people who are either incapable of originality or are simply too insecure to abandon the safe precincts of their overused playbook.

In this particular case, the analogy they are straining to produce between the 1980 Moscow Olympics and this year’s Beijing event is rather glaring. In both instances, an international incident is being co-opted to generate massive no-shows and thus wreck the games, inflicting severe PR damage and embarrassment on the host country. Forty years ago, it was the Afghanistan incursion, today it is the concocted “genocide” of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.

Never mind that the Uyghur “victims of genocide” seem to be remarkably alive and well, to the extent of popping up as proxy foot soldiers in imperial interventions all over the map, from Syria to the latest color revolution attempt in Kazakhstan. Well-funded and with ample logistical support, Uyghur émigrés and radicalised elements within Xinjiang itself are making just enough sound and fury to be weaponised by Western masters in their anti-China propaganda offensives.

So the “verdict” of Nice’s phony “tribunal,” actually an ad hoc private association created specifically for the purpose, astonished no one, just as the “verdicts” of the Hague Tribunal, where earlier Nice had honed his persecutorial skills, caused no surprise. China was duly found guilty on all counts of “genocide” against the Uyghur minority in its Xinjiang province. The stage was thus set for the vilification of China by imputing to it the most heinous crime known in international law.

Unfortunately, the Chinese inexplicably left the propaganda field wide open to their perfidious opponents and failed completely to exploit the political opportunities the Uyghur tribunal presented to them. Instead of calling their detractors’ bluff and dispatching competent barristers and credible witnesses to vigorously challenge the flimsy proceeding on its own turf, as initially and for form’s sake the “tribunal” had invited them to do while fully counting on their refusal, the Chinese chose to stand back and nurse their offended dignity. It was an error of tactical judgment which greatly facilitated the phony “tribunal’s” corrupt task by creating the convenient illusion that the accused party was given the opportunity but had nothing pertinent to say.

China’s clumsy response is water under the bridge. The question before us now is what move are the uncreative stage managers next likely to make?

That is not a complicated question precisely because they are imagination-challenged and playbook-bound. Their search for a comfortable old paradigm that, with a few adjustments and little creative effort they can apply to a new factual situation has apparently led to conjuring up a plan. It is to reframe Xinjiang, now in the Black Sea basin, with Crimean Tatars assigned the Uyghur role of genocide victims. With tensions rising around the Black Sea, another splendid little genocide to stoke the public’s fervour would indeed be just what Dr. Goebbels ordered.

So, again predictably, the propaganda drumbeat about Crimean Tatar oppression, abuse and discrimination by Russia is gathering momentum and just by pressing a few additional buttons it can easily be upgraded to the level of “genocide,” should political exigencies so dictate.

The internet accordingly is overflowing with Tatar sob stories. The leitmotiv of the fraudulent new genocide campaign is the assertion that within its vast territory Russia is literally “hiding” captive nations (“Why Russia Hides Countries Inside Its Borders?”) viciously depriving them of their language and culture just for sadistic pleasure. And, of course, as trusted “Radio Liberty” reports, arrests of “Tatar activists” are ongoing, promising to yield a rich crop of new ethnic martyrs. It is apparently yielding already a respectable number of “Tatar refugees” who will be welcomed by Western services as were their Uyghur counterparts, to form the nucleus of the “Tatar Liberation Movement” which is no doubt in the works as this is being written.

Following the tested pattern set previously for the creation of the Uyghur saga, the public are now bombarded with “webinars” and pseudo-scholarly conferences purporting to depict the dire condition of the Tatar minority in Russia. Where this propaganda blitz will ultimately go remains to be seen, but the general contours of the thinking that inspires it are unmistakably visible.

It is now Russia’s turn, after China, to be tarred and put on the defensive as a potentially genocidal oppressor of ethnic minorities which dot the vast expanse of its territory. It is of no importance whatsoever that from the Tsarist period to the present day no minority in Russia has been exterminated or deprived of its cultural identity, in sharp contrast to the numerous nations, ruined and left on the verge of extinction, which had the misfortune of being in the path of Western colonizers. Those nations have no “activists” to advocate for them and their martyrs will never be Western media poster boys.

Should the moribund empire find the audacity to again project its sins onto others by shamelessly setting up a “Tatar Tribunal” as a sequel to the Uyghur charade, hopefully Russia will show itself more savvy than China and will conduct a vigorous and proactive counteroffensive, pour écraser l’infâme.

After weeks of alarmist claims that Russia is going to invade Ukraine, now the U.S. and Western media are speculating that Russian President Vladimir Putin will “hold off on a military invasion” in order to not spoil the Winter Olympic Games underway in China.

One could hardly make up such a farce, yet the U.S. and Western news media are peddling it with a straight face. Since November, the American and European media have dutifully disseminated the narrative pushed by the Biden administration that Russia is about to march troops into its eastern neighbor. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed those claims as hysterical and baseless.

Even the Russophobic, NATO-backed regime in Kiev has recently taken a divergent position, decrying what it calls “alarmist” warnings from Washington. Ukrainian state security officials have declared publicly that there is no sign of an imminent Russian invasion. Not so much out of truthful principle, the Kiev regime seems to be more concerned by the damage and instability that such warmongering hysterics are doing to the Ukrainian economy. So embarrassing is this split in the narrative that the White House announced this week it is no longer going to refer to alleged Russian military plans as an “imminent invasion”. In other words, after two months of fruitlessly crying wolf, Washington has decided to stop crying.

How then to rationalize the otherwise fatuous fallacy of predicting invasion? Well, perhaps – it is now desperately conjectured – the purportedly scheming Russian leader is postponing the alleged plan for taking over Ukraine out of deference to China’s President Xi Jinping.

The Washington Post, CNN and others are speculating that Putin is trying to win Xi’s favor by not spoiling China’s “Olympic moment”. The Winter games opened in Beijing this week and will run until February 20 with the eyes of the world gazing at the colorful spectacle. If Russian troops and tanks were to file into Ukraine then the games in China will be marred by the ensuing conflict and international outcry, so the fevered speculation goes.

Earlier, Bloomberg News published a dubious report in which it claimed that President Xi had asked Putin to hold off military intervention in Ukraine. Beijing swiftly rubbished that report as “sheer fiction”. But it seems the fantasy has taken hold in other U.S. outlets. The reason is because it is a necessary way to save face for the same media outlets who have shamelessly spouted about Russia invading Ukraine, which has wantonly wound up geopolitical tensions and the risk of sparking an all-out war in Europe.

In other words, the credibility of the Biden administration, its Western allies and the media is at stake from their empty predictions about Russia invading Ukraine. This misinformation amounts to barefaced lies. What can be seen therefore is the orchestration of a huge propaganda effort to incite tensions and conflict with Russia. That in itself is a form of criminal aggression. In order to cover up this reprehensible racking up of conflict, the U.S. media are now speculating about a Russian pact with China to postpone invasion. Thus, the farce is taken to a higher level.

This cynical gaming with the Olympics has taken other forms in recent months. The United States, Britain, Canada and Australia, as well as European Union states, have declared a diplomatic boycott of the event. At the opening ceremony this week, Western officials were absent in Beijing. However, the boycott does not extend to athletes participating which seems rather incongruous. If there were any principles in Western allegations of human rights violations by China then why are their athletes attending?

The Western media have toed the line ordained by Washington and its Western allies to smear China. This is all part of the bigger geopolitical game of trying to undermine Beijing and Moscow. The Western media’s dutiful amplification of human rights allegations against China has played into the policy of boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics.

This is nothing short of contemptible manipulation of international sports by politics and ideology. The Olympics in China are being portrayed as an event for “non-democracies” because the Western governments have decided to avoid attending.

What’s really animating the hostility is the evident closeness and comity between Russia and China. Russian leader Vladimir Putin was given pride of place among international attendees when he was personally received in Beijing by his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Both leaders spoke confidently about the emerging multipolar world that is gradually supplanting the failing unipolar Western order under U.S. hegemony. Putin and Xi spoke of how the world is embracing new leadership of nations based on peaceful coexistence and respect for international law and the United Nations.

“There is a growing demand from the world community for leadership in the interests of peaceful and sustainable development,” a joint statement  declared, adding: “Some forces representing a minority on the world stage continue to advocate for unilateral approaches to solving international problems and resort to the politics of force, engage in interference in the internal affairs of other states, cause damage to their legitimate rights and interests, provoke contradictions, disagreements and confrontation, and hinder the development and progress of mankind, creating opposition from the international community.”

Western media have for too long carried water for warmongering and conflict, for destructive Cold War machinations and Orwellian thought-control. The latest episode is the non-event of Russian aggression against Ukraine which in reality is an inversion of reality. Added to this is the Western media spinning against China’s Olympics as some kind of “event for autocrats”.

What’s damningly demonstrated is this: if U.S. and Western media can’t explain reality then they resort to conjuring fantasy.

The world is changing for potential progress and peace in a way that exposes the bankruptcy of the already old U.S.-dominated imperial order.

Congratulations to China for hosting the XXIV Winter Olympics whose motto aptly is “Together for a Shared Future”. Congratulations, too, to the many nations that can celebrate common humanity and rise above the duplicity and hostility of geopolitical gaming.

Realpolitik minds struggle to find a point in this gratuitous provocation, intervening less than two months before the start of the show, on February 4, 2022 at the Bird’s Nest in Beijing.

According to White House reasoning, “the Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.”

To start with, no one among the Joe Biden handlers in the administration or any other officials were invited in the first place. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, remarked the US was “hyping a ‘diplomatic boycott’ without even being invited to the Games”.

Zhao also stressed the Games are not “a stage for political posturing”, and added the “blatant political provocation” constitutes “a serious affront to the 1.4 billion Chinese people.” He left hanging in the air the possibility of “resolute countermeasures”.

What that implies is the recent Xi-Biden virtual summit also melt in the air when it comes to promoting a more diplomatic entente cordiale. Predictably, Washington politicians who prevailed are the ones obsessed on demonizing Beijing using the perennial human rights pretext.

Top billing goes to Polish-American Democrat Senator Tom Malinowski from New Jersey, the vice-chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Malinowski is not strange to dodgy dealings. On October 21, 2021, the House Committee on Ethics issued a report confirming he had failed to properly disclose his stock trades since early 2020, as he

bought or sold as much as $1 million of stock in medical and tech companies that had a stake in the response to Covid-19. The trades were actually just one aspect of a stock buying and selling spree worth as much as $3.2 million.

All throughout 2021, with multiple ethics complaints and an ethics investigation piling up, Malinowski was forced to direct his financial advisor to cease with stock market shenanigans, and announced he set up a blind trust for his assets.

Yet Malinowski’s main line of business is actually China demonization.

In June, Malinowski, alongside Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and Michael McCaul (R-TX) was the key articulator of a resolution  urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to move the 2022 Games “away from Beijing” unless the PRC government ended “ongoing crimes against the Uyghur people”. The Americans were supported by legislators in nine European nations, plus the European Parliament.

At the time, Malinowski said, “there’s no such thing as non-political games – dictatorships like China host the Olympics to validate their standing…even as they continue to commit crimes against their people.”

Malinowski is very close to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – who is fervently pro-boycott. So this directive comes from the top of the Democrat leadership: the White House imprimatur was just a formality.

The “genocide” perpetrator

Considering the rolling color revolution in Hong Kong ended up as a total failure, human rights in Xinjiang remains a predictable pretext/target – on a par with the imminent “invasion” of Taiwan.

Arguably the best contextualized exposition of the real situation in Xinjiang is here. The “genocide” fallacy has been completely debunked by thorough independent analysis, as in here and here. The White House essentially regurgitates the “analysis” of a far-right religious nut first endorsed by Mike “we cheat, we lie, we steal” Pompeo. Talk about a continuity of government.

During the Cold War, the Olympics did become hostage to diplomatic boycotts. In 1980, the US under then president Jimmy Carter snubbed the Moscow Olympics along with other 64 nations in protest for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The USSR for its part, alongside the Iron Curtain, boycotted the 1984 games in Los Angeles.

What happens now falls under the seal of Cold War 2.0 and the demonization of China across the spectrum, mostly via Hybrid War tactics.

Xinjiang is a prime target not because of the Uyghurs, but because it is the strategic connector between western China and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) corridors across Central Asia, South Asia and West Asia all the way to Europe. BRI – which is the centerpiece Chinese foreign policy concept for the foreseeable future – is an absolute anathema in Washington.

The fact that the US has been staging countless, costly, devastating declinations of humanitarian imperialism in Muslim lands, directly and indirectly, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and beyond, but now, suddenly, is in tears about the fate of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, speaks for itself.

“Rights” groups barely disguised as CIA propaganda fronts have predictably been shrieking non-stop, urging the “international community” – an euphemism for NATOstan – to boycott the Beijing Olympics. These are irrelevant. Governments are a more serious matter.

Twenty nations refused to sign the Olympic Truce with China. This tradition, originating in Ancient Greece, makes sure that political upheaval does not interfere with sport. The – Western – justification for yet another provocation: we’re “sending a message” to Beijing.

In the UK, Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg remarked recently that “no tickets have been booked” for the Olympics. The Foreign Office said earlier this week, “no decisions have yet been made” about sending officials to Beijing.

France will “coordinate” with other EU members, although the Elysée made a point that ‘when we are worried about human rights, we tell the Chinese…We adopted sanctions on Xinjiang last March.” That was a reference to the US, UK, EU, Canada and a few other allies sanctioning some Chinese officials for the glaring fake news the White House officially describes as “genocide”.

So any adherence to the White House directive this coming February will come essentially from NATOstan members and of course AUKUS. In contrast, across Asia and the Global South, no one could be bothered. South Korean foreign ministry spokesman Choi Yong-sam, for instance, stressed that South Korea supports the Olympics.

President Putin for his part accepted a personal invitation from Xi Jinping, and he will be at the inauguration.

Extremely strict Covid-19 control measures will be enforced during the Olympics, so for the organizers a smaller number of Western official guests flying in, in terms of cost, is actually a benefit.

So in the end what’s left of this fit of hysteria? Elon Musk may have nailed it this week at a CEO Council Summit, when he remarked that China’s economy could soon be two or three times the size of the US economy. That hurts. And there’s no way any boycott will solve it.

Pertaining to Russia’s participation at the rescheduled 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, there’ve been a number of arrogantly ignorant and hypocritical Anglo-American mass media commentary, which serve as a further indication of the warped state of establishment journalism.

One of numerous examples is Ian Birrell’s pompously titled August 1 inews.co.uk article “The Russian Olympic Committee Proves It: Tokyo 2020 Has Been Perverted by Money and Power“. In its About section, inews.co.uk claims to be “your essential daily briefing, covering everything you need to know about the things that matter – without jargon or bluster” adding that it’s “proudly independent and have no agenda when it comes to political disputes – but we won’t hesitate to call out injustice or wrongdoing when we see it, no matter who’s doing it.”

Contrary to Birrell’s rehashed BS, Russia is competing at Tokyo because much of the “state sponsored doping” charges made against it are dubious. Before a non-Russian hearing, Russia was able to point this out.

Delving further into this matter runs counter to the faulty image of deceitful Russians stealing glory from noble Anglo-American athletes. This observation isn’t intended to deny any Russian wrongdoing. Rather, it underscores an inaccurate generalization. It’s not as if Russia has denied any sports doping problem among some of its athletes.

The Russian government funding of a given entity doesn’t by default mean the former knows everything about what the latter is doing. It’s misguided to believe the Russian government has complete control over everything in Russia.

Russia didn’t get completely vindicated on competing in Olympic affiliated events. The ROC (Russian Olympic Committee) designation in place of Russia is an indication of a pious reality dominating some key aspects in international sports. The ROC label is clearly designed to collectively nation shame, with some hoping Russia would just not show up altogether.

The Russian Olympic participation in Tokyo is a blow to those who sought a complete ban of all Russian athletes. With the unfairness of collective guilt in mind, these very same anti-Russian advocates (like Dick Pound and Travis Tygart) appear to be quite reluctant to ever support a blanket ban against their fellow compatriots.

Birrell states it’s “highly unlikely, to put it mildly, that all their medal-winners have clean records.” To date, I’ve seen no conclusive evidence indicating that Russian Olympic athletes over the last five years have come under less scrutiny for drug testing. If anything, they rank as being among the most scrutinized of participants. Birrell’s political agenda is clear, with his inaccurately partisan references to Vladimir Putin, Crimea and Chechnya – subjects having nothing to do with Russia’s Olympic athletes.

Like Birrell, Henry Bushnell’s July 30 Yahoo article “Are Russian Drug Cheats at the Olympics? Here’s What We Know,” mentions the much discussed comments made by U.S. swimmer Ryan Murphy after losing the 200 meter backstroke to Evgeny Rylov. On the participation of Russians, Bushnell writes: “The question of whether they should, though, is a tricky one, because none of the 300-plus Russian athletes competing in Tokyo have been found guilty of doping. However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t guilty.”

At play is a blend of often unchallenged sore losers and bigoted hypocrisy. In politically correct circles, there’s an understandable outcry to use crime statistics to put African-Americans under greater scrutiny and suspicion. There’re plenty of non-Russian sports doping infractions. A number of other countries are ahead of Russia, when it comes to getting exemptions for using banned drugs.

Rhetorically put to Bushnell, how do we know for sure that non-Russian winners are clean? More pointedly, how do we know for sure Murphy is clean? Recall Carl Lewis moaning about Ben Johnson, who was eventually found to have cheated. Later on and under less drama, it was revealed that Lewis himself doped. Much unlike Johnson, the victorious Rylov doesn’t have a suspicious background, in terms of a dramatically changed appearance and athletic performance.

Murphy has since walked back his comments a bit – something seemingly beyond Sebastian Coe, the British head of the track and field (athletics) governing body. Coe brashly said Russia should consider itself lucky to have any Olympic track and field participants. In doing so, he’s further exhibiting a snide disdain for Russians. Specifically, the ones who’ve qualified and have been tested.

At the Tokyo Olympics, Russia is allowed a quota of only ten track and field athletes, regardless of how many well tested and event qualifying Russians there are. How ironic that quotas against some groups are considered bigoted unlike others.

Back in 2016, Coe lobbied for drug cheat Yulia Stepanova to compete at the Rio Olympics. He did no such advocacy for the clean gold medal contending Russian athletes (notably Yelena Isinbayeva and Maxim Subchenkov), who were banned from competition. After getting busted for doping, Stepanova spilled the beans on two of her countrywomen, who doped as well. Stepanova proceeded to participate in a factually challenged German aired propaganda film against Russian track and field athletes.

In a PBS NewsHour segment, the prominent African-American sociologist Harry Edwards, spoke to a sympathetic host about the adversity which athletes like Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka face. On a local TV news network, I watched an upbeat feature concerning the Jewish-American players on the Israeli Olympic baseball team.

Thanks to the unofficial censorship out there, my not for Anglo-American mass media kudos acknowledges the Russian Olympic athletes and patriotically responsible Russians at large, who’ve put up with the unjust attacks against them.

The coronavirus pandemic has given Russia bashing a new twist. As was true beforehand, the latest edition of disparaging Russia is short on conclusive supporting facts.

The title of Thomas Rid’s March 16 New York Times article “Can Russia Use the Coronavirus to Sow Discord Among Americans?,” is a tell all, as is his take on (as he puts it) “Russia’s bumbling military spy agency, GRU. It was GRU that was caught red-handed in 2016 meddling in the presidential election.”

Rid’s article diverts to the issue (which he presents as fact) of the USSR and post-Soviet Russia looking to sow ethnic discord in the U.S. – something I partly addressed in my Strategic Culture Foundation article “Getting Real with the U.S. Foreign Policy Establishment Realists“, of this past August 21. Besides the example (in that article) of George Kent suggestively seeking to sow ethnic tension in Russia, I’ll add that the Cold War era U.S. government interacted favorably with the anti-Russian Captive Nations Committee, creating Captive Nations Week (an official U.S. holiday), which (as outlined in its program) portrayed Russia and Russians as a negatively exploitative grouping – something that understandably offended anti-Communist Russian Americans and some others having a sense of universal ethics. So there’s no misunderstanding, I don’t dispute that the USSR made propaganda out of ethnic intolerance in the U.S.

Rid doesn’t lay out how Russia can successfully subvert the U.S. relative to the coronavirus pandemic. He comes across as someone who might downplay instances like the U.S. government’s conducting of chemical experiments on the American population. Is that Soviet and/or Russian disinformation?

James Holmes’ March 20 National Interest article “Beware of Pandemic America“, starts off with this tabloid thought: “Note to China and Russia: despite appearances, the time of coronavirus may not be an opportune time for you to chisel away at America’s global standing.” With this take in mind, it’s somewhat ironic to see EU and NATO member Italy, seeking and getting Chinese and Russian assistance to combat the coronavirus.

Does Holmes prefer that Russia and China not assist others in addressing the coronavirus pandemic? China is just now starting to rebound from its bout with the coronavirus. Russia isn’t out of the woods on this challenging health issue. With these factors in place, it doesn’t seem likely that either of these two countries are in an especially improved condition to successfully thwart the U.S.

Holmes’ article references some past historical occurrences which don’t involve Russia or China. His piece ends with a bravado warning about what has happened to some of America’s prior adversaries. Before accepting Holmes’ article, one would think that a realist leaning venue like The National Interest, might ask him to offer examples of where Russia and China might “chisel away at America’s global standing“?

Holmes’ piece is a classic example of not attempting to acknowledge and understand the positions of others being targeted for mischievous behavior, while suggesting that virtue is completely on only one side. When left unchecked, this kind of thinking serves as a recipe for increasing the likelihood of a future conflict. An earnest American red, white and blue patriotism shouldn’t be confused with a rah, rah, red, white and bull skullduggery.

The U.S. remains quite militarily engaged in China’s near abroad, much unlike Beijing’s presence in the Western Hemisphere. With or without the coronavirus, like it or not, China appears destined to achieve greater worldwide influence. For American geo-strategists and some others, managing this likely reality in the peacefully best possible way, seems like the best case scenario.

In the post-Soviet era, Russia has a military position, which (much unlike the Soviet period) primarily concerns itself with its immediate periphery. Moscow’s activity beyond its near abroad is comparatively quite limited, when compared to the U.S. Given its size and geostrategic predicament, Russia’s annual defense expenditure is indicative of a country that’s not so interested in a traditional big power expansion. In military spending, Russia doesn’t rank among the top five nations.

Shifting gears, Isabelle Khurshudyan’s and Simon Denyer’s March 20 Washington Post (WaPo) article “Suspected Russian hackers struck the last Olympics. Tokyo worries it could be next.“, doesn’t conclusively prove that the Russian government has been involved with attempts to undermine the last and next Summer Olympics. The modus operandi of this article is along the lines of the Russiagate narrative. Politically partisan sources are uncritically referenced. Among them is the American sports legal politico, Travis Tygart, whose use of “despicable” is projection on his part. Tygart has repeatedly called for all Russian athletes to be banned from the next Olympics. He’s comparatively lax when it comes to being so heavy handed against others. It’s therefore not inaccurate to view his stance as bigoted.

Its government included, Russia at large embraces the Olympics, thereby making it suspect that there’s an underhandedly concerted effort by that country to ruin the Summer Olympics. Before the announced postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Russian affiliated sports organizations weren’t at the forefront in calling for that stoppage, when compared to a number of non-Russian sports bodies.

The WaPo article at issue makes reference to the attempt to formally ban Russia from the next Summer Olympics. It’s within reason for Russians en masse to oppose that endeavor. Linking that opposition to a Russian attempt to destroy the Olympics altogether is (put mildly) unproven and quite suspect.

Western mass media has generally continued to skew the particulars involved with trying to formally ban Russia from the next Summer Olympics. As an example, a March 12 BBC piece “Tokyo 2020: Maximum of 10 Russian Track and Field Athletes to Compete as Neutrals“, says without any challenge:

“It has also fined the Russian Athletics Federation $10m (£ 7.8m) for breaching anti-doping rules.

Athletes will be banned from Tokyo 2020 if half of that fine isn’t paid by 1 July.

In December, Russia was given a four year ban from all major sports events.”

A number of otherwise pertinent issues aren’t delved into. If the UK were substituted for Russia and with the same circumstances, one suspects that the above linked article would’ve been written much differently.

Why the collective guilt against athletes, if a fine by an organization isn’t paid? How are the athletes by default responsible? Is it because they’re Russian? That’s collective guilt bigotry. In other situations, it’s considered bigoted to collectively caricature a given ethnic and/or national group based on crime statistics, as I’ve previously noted.

Why only have ten Russian track and field athletes compete, if there’re more clean Russians whose performances qualify? In some other instances, quotas against an ethnic and/or national group have led to reasonable claims of discrimination. Shortly after the announced postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Sebastian Coe, the head of track and field’s governing body, said that more than ten Russians might be eligible to participate in that Olympiad’s rescheduled program. He stated this without acknowledging any wrongness on the initially stated quota of ten.

BTW, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), (which has generally exhibited a bias against Russia), that country in 2016 ranks sixth (behind among others) the U.S., France, Australia and Italy in drug related infractions. There doesn’t appear to be any indication that Russia’s sports doping situation has gotten worse since 2016.

The aforementioned BBC piece omits that Russia has appealed the faulty WADA recommendation (to formally ban Russia from the next Summer Olympics in Tokyo) to the CAS (Committee of Arbitration for Sport). This legal body doesn’t have a track record of always agreeing with a prior decision. Hence, it’s not etched in stone that Russia will be officially banned from the next Summer Olympics.

Prior to the worldwide effort to combat the coronavirus endemic, Russia has been formally represented at major sporting events – track and field (AKA athletics) being an exception. If the CAS rules in favor of Russia, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should make sure that competing Russian track and field competitors are officially represented as Russians at the next Summer Olympics.

The downplaying of Russian participation at Pyeongchang, is seemingly done to spin the image of many Russian cheats being kept out. At the suggestion of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) closely vetted Russians for competition at the 2018 Winter Olympics. In actuality, the 2018 Russian Winter Olympic participation wasn’t so off the mark, when compared to past Winter Olympiads – something which (among other things) puts a dent into the faulty notion that Russia should be especially singled out for sports doping.

At the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Russia had its largest ever Winter Olympic contingent of 232, on account of the host nation being allowed a greater number of participants. The 168 Russian Winter Olympians at Pyeongchang is 9 less than the Russians who competed at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Going back further, Russian Winter Olympic participation in 2006 was at 190, with its 2002 contingent at 151, 1998 having 122 and 1994 (Russia’s first formal Winter Olympic appearance as Russia) 113.

The aforementioned Reuters piece references a “historian“, Bill Mallon, who is keen on using the 1992 Summer Olympic banning of Yugoslavia (then consisting of Serbia and Montenegro) as a legitimate basis to ban Russia from the upcoming Summer Olympics. In this instance, Alan Dershowitz’s periodic reference to the “if the shoe is on the other foot” test is quite applicable. Regarding Mallon, “historian” is put in quotes because his historically premised advocacy is very much incomplete and overly propagandistic.

For consistency sake and contrary to Mallon, Yugoslavia should’ve formally participated at the 1992 Summer Olympics. The Olympic banning of Yugoslavia was bogus, given that the IOC and the IOC affiliated sports federations didn’t ban the US and USSR for their respective role in wars, which caused a greater number of deaths than what happened in 1990s Bosnia. The Reuters article at issue references a United Nations resolution for sanctions against Yugoslavia, without any second guessing, in support of the preference (at least by some) to keep politics out of sports as much as possible.

Mallon casually notes that Yugoslav team sports were banned from the 1992 Summer Olympics, unlike individual Yugoslav athletes, who participated as independents. At least two of the banned Yugoslav teams were predicted to be lead medal contenders.

Croatia was allowed to compete at the 1992 Summer Olympics, despite that nation’s military involvement in the Bosnian Civil War. During the 1992 Summer and Winter Olympics, the former USSR participated in individual and team sports as the Unified Team (with the exception of the three former Soviet Baltic republics, who competed under their respective nation). With all this in mind, the ban on team sports from Yugoslavia at the 1992 Summer Olympics, under a neutral name, appears to be hypocritical and ethically challenged.

BS aside, the reality is that geopolitical clout (in the form of might making right), is what compels the banning of Yugoslavia, unlike superpowers engaged in behavior which isn’t less egregious. Although a major world power, contemporary Russia lacks the overall geopolitical influence of the USSR. Historian Stephen Cohen and some others, have noted that post-Soviet Russia doesn’t get the same (for lack of a better word) respect accorded to the USSR. This aspect underscores how becoming freer, less militaristic and more market oriented doesn’t (by default) bring added goodwill from a good number of Western establishment politicos and the organizations which are greatly influenced by them.

On the subject of banning Russia from the Olympics, Canadian sports legal politico Dick Pound, continues to rehash an inaccurate likening with no critical follow-up. (An exception being yours truly.) Between 2016 and 2019, Pound references the Olympic banning of South Africa, as a basis for excluding Russia. South Africa was banned when it had apartheid policies, which prevented that country’s Black majority from competing in organized sports. Russia has a vast multiethnic participation in sports and other sectors.

As previously noted, the factual premise to formally ban Russia from the Olympics remains suspect. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is set to review Russia’s appeal to have the recommended WADA ban against Russia overturned, as Western mass media at large and sports politicos like Pound continue to push for a CAS decision against Russia.

The British head of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, brazenly supports a ban on all Russian track and field athletes, until it can be firmly established (in his view) that they’re clean. Coe’s take has been widely reported in Western mass media, with little, if any second guessing of the hypocrisy he exhibits.

Despite missing three consecutive drug tests, American sprinter Christian Coleman, was allowed to compete at this past World Athletics Championships. It’s quite doubtful that any Russian would be allowed the benefit given to Coleman. As is true with a number of other sports, there’re credible reports indicating that World Athletics has an inconsistent worldwide drug testing regimen.

A few years ago, an ESPN “Outside the Lines” segment (aired at an early Sunday morning low ratings time slot), noted that some top Jamaican track and field athletes have regularly missed drug tests, as a Jamaican whistleblower on this issue has been castigated in her country. (Pardon me for not having a transcript of that show.)

Regarding non-Russian Olympians, Coleman’s situation is by no means an isolated one. Numerous Norwegian cross country skiers, along with prominent US Olympians Serena Williams, Simone Biles and Justin Gatlin, are among a non-Russian grouping that fall in the category of either missing drug tests, failing them, or getting an exemption for using an otherwise banned substance.

The ban against Russia competing as a country at the 2018 Winter Olympics didn’t see a noticeable banning of top Russian Olympians for suspected drug use. (Under the Olympic flag and anthem, these Russians competed as the “Olympic Athletes from Russia”) Hence, that prohibition was essentially a form of collective punishment against an entire nation and its people. At the recommendation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Russia now faces a banning for the next Summer and Winter Olympics.

On the reportedly altered Russian database of drug test results, how many other countries have been asked to forward as complete an accounting of their respective athletes? As of now and as reported, this particular pertaining to Russia looks shady. Verifiable specifics on the database editing haven’t been released. Regardless, when it comes to drug testing over the past several years, Russia’s top Olympic caliber athletes are probably the most carefully scrutinized in the world. These individuals spend time outside Russia (training and/or competing), where they can and have been suddenly tested. Unless my information is wrong (which I doubt), they also get tested in Russia, with samples going to the WADA and/or a WADA affiliated vender.

The British WADA member Jonathan Taylor, said that a lengthy appeal process at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), could allow for Russia to formally participate at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Taylor is against this scenario – instead favoring for Russia to be excluded from the next Summer and Winter Olympics. He emphasized that a CAS ruling against Russia after the 2020 Summer Olympics, would result in that country getting banned from the 2024 Summer Olympics.

I suspect that most Russians don’t see Taylor as a fair reviewer, who is truly concerned about Russia’s best interests. If Russia can’t achieve a relatively quick CAS appeal in its favor, it’s arguably in Russia’s best interests to have a delayed decision, allowing for a formal Russian 2020 Summer Olympics representation.

As time passes, there’s a chance that a growing number will see how unfair Russia has been treated, in conjunction with organizations like World Athletics and WADA possibly getting an overhaul, to better prevent any unfair treatment against a given nation and its people.