Putin's A Killer Who's Guilty until (impossibly) Proven Innocent

The man's body has hardly been identified as Yevgeni Prigozhin's, and already The Economist and virtually all western mainstream media already know who killed him.

Here's The Economist's headline on the matter: "Prigozhin's death shows that Russia is a mafia state. A healthy country uses justice to restore order. Mr. Putin uses violence instead."

The follow-up elaborates: "As we published this editorial, it was not certain that Yevgeny Prigozhin's private jet was shot down by Russian air-defences, or that the mutineer and mercenary boss was on board. But everyone believes that it was and that his death was a punishment of spectacular ruthlessness ordered by Russia's president Vladimir Putin. And that is the way Mr. Putin likes it."

Really? You mean we don't know:

• What caused Prigozhin's jet to crash,
• Or if Prigozhin was on board,
• Yet, EVERYONE believes that the plane was shot down,
• By order of the "ruthless" Vladimir Putin
• Who The Economist somehow knows is pleased by the turn of events.

Yes, that's what The Economist says.

And all that passes for sober analysis. Wow! No wonder Caitlin Johnstone can write with perfect logic that we westerners are "More Propagandized than Chinese People."

Of course, until the completion of a proper investigation (that can take months), there are many other possibilities to explain this apparent final chapter in Prigozhin's colorful life:

• His plane might have crashed because of technical failures. Yes, that's possible!
• As a master of deception and disguises, Prigozhin might not have been on board. We will not know if he was until DNA tests have been completed.
• And even then . . ..
• Ukrainians might have brought the plane down,
• Or the CIA in one of its covert operations,
• Or disgruntled Russian military personnel,
• Or unhappy Wagner minions
• Or one of Prigozhin's many, many enemies other than Vladimir Putin.
• Or the plane might have been shot down after misidentification by Russian air defenses,
• Or. . ..

But even more importantly, using the standard of non-evidence embraced by The Economist to establish the mafioso nature of the Russian state, how are we to characterize our own "United" States in view of its much better documented assassinations and assassination attempts of heads of state and public figures such as:

• Fidel Castro of Cuba (600 CIA plots)
• Patrice Lumumba of Congo (1961)
• Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic (1961)
• Salvador Allende of Chile (1973)
• Achmad Sukarno of Indonesia (1975)
• Muammar Ghadaffy of Libya (2011)
• Malcolm X of the United States (1965)
• Martin Luther King of the United States (1968)
• Robert F. Kennedy Sr. of the United States (1968)
• President John F. Kennedy of the United States (1963)

That's just the short list of "punishment of spectacular ruthlessness" allegedly ordered by "our" own government - again, on much sounder evidence than the absolutely pure speculation of the mainstream western press.

By The Economist's and other mainstream media standards of proof (i.e., pure speculation), is ours then a "healthy country" that "uses justice to restore order?" Or is the U.S. a "mafia state" much worse than Russia?

Clearly, The Economist has once again shown beyond doubt that it is just another propaganda rag along with all those others who voice certainty about designated enemies long before evidence decides the case?

The rag's yellow journalism underlines its own bias by ignoring much better reasons for identifying our own country as a criminal enterprise that makes Cosa Nostra seem benign by comparison.

Draw your own conclusions.