No punishment for planned/attempted murder.
The West is hopelessly naive about sophisticated and brutal adversaries like Russia and Iran.
Citation sorely needed
Without experience in this domain, I could fermi-guess optimal ones probably come from the few percentages of population who don’t suffer of PTSD after violence. So if you want a person of above average intelligence, who does not mind going to plausibly suicidal missions, and is able to keep it all together, AND has decided to take a career in cloak&dagger… I’d say such fields agents are not trivial to replace. Hence you probably want to issue the courtesy of returning opposing forces, rather than having to find a new field agent (or whatever they are called) or several.
So let’s not advocate for the left becoming authoritarian shall we? [parts of] Europe tried that already, it doesn’t work either.
This is an interesting statement to me, because the right uses very similar language in the opposite direction. To paraphrase: "we're playing by the rules while the left is using the federal government to silence political adversaries."
From where I sit, those statements don't seem entirely accurate, but they also are not mutually exclusive.
Yes, if only they frequented social media, they might have some clue what Chinese, Russian, and Iranian security services were up to. Alas for their naivete...
Most spies are known to the host nations as they work out of the embassy under cover jobs with standard diplomatic passports, therefore they have diplomatic immunity if they run into trouble and the best the host country can do is permanently evict them.
"How does it feel, I ask, to be here in absentia? Grozev laughs. After the Russians indicted him “in absentia”, he posted a selfie video from Palm Beach, Florida, against a sunset backdrop. “I said, ‘If this is absentia, it’s a pretty great place to be.’”
"Is Austria the least safe European country? “Yes,” he replies. “While we [Bellingcat] were investigating the Austrians, they were surveilling me and I wasn’t aware of that at the time. They were doing so explicitly at the request of the Russians. That is deep penetration.”
"He says the Germans advised him not to settle in Germany. He last visited Germany in 2020 under heavy guard as a witness in the prosecution of a Russian who had assassinated a Chechen exile. “We are also investigating examples of Russian security services penetrating German political circles,” he says. “France, I would not trust them: they don’t even trust themselves. The only place in Europe I can come to safely nowadays is the UK.”
"He is still angry, however, at London’s Metropolitan Police for cancelling his and his family’s attendance at the Bafta film awards this year. “Hearing it through the grapevine was offensive,” he says. “If there is also a risk to my family, they should tell me directly.”
"Both Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, which is teeming with Russians, are off-limits, he adds. “Dubai is Vienna on the Gulf,” he says. “I have heard this warning from both the Emirates and Turkey — ‘Do not come here. We will try to protect you. We will never extradite you [to Russia]. But we can’t guarantee your safety.’”"
Grozen did his interview in the United States, where he is currently living. I suspect that the separation by the sea (English Channel for the UK and the Atlantic for the US) increases the security.
[1] (Paywalled) https://www.ft.com/content/03f220e1-6a7e-4850-bf4e-4b0f521d8...
https://www.mintpressnews.com/bellingcat-intelligence-agenci...
https://mronline.org/2021/10/11/bellingcat-funded-by-u-s-and...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintPress_News
>The Monthly Review, established in 1949, is an independent socialist magazine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monthly_Review
>Originally published: The Grayzone
>The Grayzone has downplayed human rights abuses against Uyghurs, posted conspiracy theories about Venezuela, Xinjiang, Syria and other regions, and posted pro-Russian propaganda during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
You just describe yourself with this statement, not The Grayzone.
https://www.propastop.org/eng/2023/05/19/how-the-kremlin-use...
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/05/28/us-soldiers-expos...
Julian Assange, Shireen Abu Akleh, etc.
There’s a reason most mainstream media reporting is the equivalent of 2nd grade book report.
>“That is what drives us crazy,” the detective said. “You come here and act like you’re on vacation. Like this is some paradise. It doesn’t even occur to you to keep yourself safe. We have political killings here. The Russian special services are active in Germany. Your carelessness, yours and your colleagues, knows no bounds.”
It's very difficult to reconcile what seems like the safety of Europe with the reality of a war that is being fought online as much as on the ground. Journalists have always been targeted by authoritarian regimes, but the connectedness of the modern world makes them dangerous even outside after leaving the country. Clearly this is what the Russian state believes.