RE: Extreme Crony Capitalism in Russia - Red Notice by Bill Browder
Thanks for the interesting post based on the true story. Russia is indeed a dictatorship disguised as a democracy with votes and elections. Putin seems to be bumping off or arresting his opponents at the moment leading up to the next election. He had been in power for about 20 years there, controlling the other oligarchs. What a dangerous world. At least we can learn about it from good books written by those who experienced the dangers and wickedness first hand.
A book on my top ten list that shows how criminal America is, called "Confessions of an economic hitman" by John Perkins, explains how the CIA overthrew entire nations illegally and caused the death of thousands of innocents. At least Putin keeps in his own country. America is raping the entire world.
My country of South Africa is a rotten mess run by mafia politicians too. A book called "My president's keepers" by Charl Pauw, a journalist, gives names and details of how the ex president destroyed the best state institutions like the tax collection office to protect himself.
I would say no country is free from criminal leaders. The bigger the country, the bigger the crimes their leaders commit. Russia is quite big and run by mafia criminals like Putin. America and China are very big and engage in atrocities on their own people and the rest of the world. My little country is run by mafia types too. They all do it.
as @crypticat points out, there are two sides to every story. Browder was mistreated by Russia, but were the American sanction on Russians fair? The Russian government is run by the oligarchs, but America is also corrupt to a different extent. I just think Russia is worse, but then again that's Russia's business.
I've read confessions of an economic hitman, it's a great book. Actually, in Red Notice, Browder starts off doing something similar, he started in Poland and basically destroy a bus company, he didn't want to but his boss did. However he wrote about it 20 years after and who knows what his true thoughts were at the time.
This is true but there is an equation between area, population, military power, and perhaps most important but difficult to guage freedom/liberty/democracy. For example, Canada is large, but hardly evil criminal compared to much smaller countries like North Korea or Israel.
I took a course on Southern African (we also focused on Angola Zimbabwe etc.) politics in university and I learned a little about post Apartheid South Africa. I mostly read economic journals talking about the cold war and post cold war environment, but it was really interesting. I'll have to see if I can get a hold of that book or at least some of the papers that influenced it. I do know some stories that are shocking. As a regional power, South Africa does have some responisibility and that is the point. America, China and Russia try to assert dominance beyond their boarders and even beyond their regions and deserve extra scrutiny. I do think America has calmed down since the Bush Administration (Trump is nowhere near as evil IMO), however, Xi and Putin are absolute despots and Russia and China are at their peak of incivility. Trump may actually be bringing troops home soon. He keeps asking for more and more money (may as well try) to keep troops abroad and is fighting with the generals. Let's see because according to some Americans he is the last person you would expect given all the crap he is doing internally.