Robert Service (lead images) commits the pathetic fallacy over and over.
It isn't that his fallacies are pathetic, and so deserve to be pitied. It is that
Service takes money for writing histories, purporting to be about Russia, its revolutionary leaders, and now its current leader, by projecting his own emotions on to his targets. It's the kind of personification intended to convince readers of the hostility of his Russian targets, and Service's wisdom in judging them for what they are; that's to say, what deserves to be done to them (if they aren't dead yet) by people like Service.
Service is a propagandist for Russia-hating, Kremlin-changing warfare. His output is a stream of books aimed by Pan Macmillan — now a German-owned publisher with most of its sales in the US — at American readers inveigled into wanting war with Russia.
"I came to this project after serving as a witness in the Berezovski v. Abramovich trial in 2011-2012", Service says by way of his oath to tell the truth at the start of his new testimony against Vladimir Putin. Service's book, released this week, is called
Kremlin Winter: Russia and the Second Coming of Vladimir Putin. From the start line at the title, the assumption is Service's war-fighting one: Putin is omnipotent in Russia - topple him so the world, as Service is paid to represent it, will be safe from global winter and other Kremlin hostilities.
What Service doesn't acknowledge is that
he was hired by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich to testify as an expert in the High Court case against Boris Berezovsky. Service's fee is also
undisclosed; it would have been more than a vet's (£90 per hour) but less than a neurosurgeon's (£171).
Comment: It is more likely we will never know the full story behind the dog-and-pony scandals that have rocked the nation, courtesy of partisan politics emanating from those elected to represent us. We have fallen for 'causes' without legality, maneuvers that lessen our rights, belief in judicial structures that continually fail us and politicians with false personae whose only concern is to achieve an agenda. Undermining half of government will never make us stronger, never 'Make America Great Again' unless we first demand a return to value, decency, and adherence to principle and law for every citizen - the way it's supposed to be.