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Here is the list of US citizens publicly barred from Russia in response to the US Magnitsky List. Are you familiar with any of them?
Individuals alleged to be involved in the use and legalization of torture and indefinite confinement of prisoners – the “Guantanamo list”:
1. David Spears Addington – Chief of Staff of the U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney (2005-2009);
2. John Choon Yoo – Legal adviser at the U.S. Department of Justice (2001-2003);
3. Geoffrey D. Miller – Commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, which administers the U.S. military detention centers at the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base on Cuba (2002-2003)
4. Jeffrey Harbeson – Commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo (2010-2012)
Individuals alleged to be involved in abuse of Russian citizens’ human rights abroad:
5. Jed Saul Rakoff – U.S. District Judge for Southern District of New York;
6. Preetinder S. Bharara – U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York;
7. Michael J. Garcia – Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York;
8. Brendan R. McGuire – Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York;
9. Anjan S. Sahni – Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York;
10. Christian R. Everdell – Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York;
11. Jenna Minicucci Dabbs – Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York;
12. Christopher L. Lavigne – Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York;
13. Michael Max Rosensaft – Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York;
14. Louis J. Milione – Senior Special Agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration;
15. Sam Gaye – Senior special Agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration;
16. Robert F. Zachariasiewicz – Special Agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration;
17. Derek S. Odney – Special Agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration;
18. Gregory A. Coleman – Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation;
I’m familiar with two of them.
John Yoo, of course – the guy who provided much of the “legal” basis for both Guantanamo and the Iraq War. I don’t view him as a war criminal or anything like some of the liberal leftists do. Nonetheless, if Russia is providing a “symmetrical” response to the Magnitsky List, it couldn’t bar a more appropriate person. Yoo himself seems to be taking it in good stride.
John Yoo's snarky response to #Russia visa ban: “There goes that vacation dacha in Sochi that the wife always wanted" http://t.co/zDd57nDA02
— Kirit Radia (@KiritRadia) April 14, 2013
The other guy I’m familiar with (too familiar with) is Preet Bharara who was just now the subject of a gushing hagiography from Mark Galeotti. In reality he is a thug who thinks who thinks that going after online poker players’ money is a good use of US investigative resources. Oh, I know full well that he was really blacklisted for his actions against Viktor Bout – a legitimate arms trader who the US only took a disliking to after he started selling weapons to the wrong people. But while I may not care much about Bout, I do care about my money, especially that which was frozen after Black Friday, and the hit to my expected earnings once the biggest online poker vendors pulled out of the US in its aftermath. (How else do you think I blog and write books without a regular day job?). So for this reason I am extremely happy to see Bharara on that list in the knowledge that maybe, just maybe it will cause him some spot of inconvenience one day.
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Dear Anatoly,
The only individual on the Russian list that I know of is John Yoo. I consider him a thoroughly sinister and morally corrupt individual. I do not consider him a war criminal or indeed any sort of criminal. What he did was provide legal advice, which by definition is simply an expression of opinion. An expression of opinion, however wrong and repellent, cannot and should not ever be a crime.
I agree that it was astute of whoever drew up the Russian list to put John Yoo on it.
By the way I found Mark Galleoti bizarre. I make no observation about Preet Bharara about whom I know nothing, but what Mark Galeotti is basically saying is that Russia’s response to the Magnitsky list should have been to do nothing. That was never an option since it would have made Russia look weak, which given the kind of attack on Russian sovereignty that the Magnitsky law and the Magnitsky list are would have been very dangerous. Blaming Russia for worsening relations with the US by publishing its list diverts attention from those who have actually caused the worsening of relations between the US and Russia, who are the original authors of the Magnitsky law and of the Magnitsky list.
As for the Russian list, it is in my opinion shrewdly drafted and well calibrated. Apart from a few people like Yoo, whose conduct has made them notorious even in the US but who are not accused by the authors of the Russian list of any specific crime, it is mainly directed at US officials who have taken action against Russian citizens who the Russian government has a duty to protect. In that it contrasts with the Magnitsky list, which is directed at Russian officials who have had no dealings of any sort with US citizens and against whom the US therefore has no claim. The Russian list does not therefore violate US sovereignty in the way that the Magnitsky list violates Russian sovereignty.
Once your name shows up on a list you become a target. Skinheads and foreign mercenaries are always on patrol out there…waiting for one of them to show up at the wrong place at the wrong time. John Yoo could very well wind up as the next Daniel Pearl. Smallest violin and best of luck to those that made the list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pearl
I would’ve gone further and put Eric Holder on the list, invoking the tit for tat of the Magnitsky case being just as outside American prosecutorial jurisdiction as the slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. After all, the Magnitsky list members haven’t been prosecuted — in fact they haven’t even been charged with contempt of Congress, unlike Holder. Alas, Russia would never do that because:
1) Russia is not looking to escalate but to tone down the tit for tat
2) Russia wouldn’t give any precedent/justification to the notion that Congress gets to convict foreign citizens absent trial anymore than the State Duma can convict Americans though all sovereign nations have the right to declare anyone persona non grata.
3) Everyone, even folks who pretend not to like Eric Holder and the Obama Administration in D.C. would go apes— in response to Russia treating the U.S. in a genuinely symmetrical response as opposed to a symbolic one, since I doubt anyone on the counter Magnitsky list would ever go to Russia. Though the captains of Russophobic smugistan certainly overestimate the interest of Russian elites in flying to Miami or LA.
I dunno about that but I tweeted a certain Venezuelan activist today that Moscow isn’t as big on black bagging/droning accused terrorists (including those who are given aslyum in Great Britain) as the U.S. has been in other parts of Europe with the renditions of Arab German nationals suspected of Al-Qaeda ties both pre and post 9/11.
And Anatoly, I can personally confirm from talking to a guy who used to fly guns both to the Iraqis and Iranians during that war (as alluded to in the scene where the infamous arms dealer says in Lord War, ‘What makes you think I don’t want both sides to lose?’) that Bout performed valuable services to both governments during his arms trafficking career. One side threw him under the bus, the other wanted to bring him back home.