Why Did Biden Let Ukraine Kill American Gonzalo Lira?
Gonzalo Lira was an American citizen and journalist who died last week in Ukraine’s gulag because the Zelensky regime didn’t treat his pneumonia. It also had tortured him. The Biden State Department knew about this. I saw at least one of its press conferences where Lira’s plight was brought up. Lira’s only “crime” was reporting on the criminal Zelensky dictatorship and the horrors of a war than never should have happened.
A privilege of being a U.S. citizen is, if you get into trouble in a foreign country, the State Department helps you. There’s the well-known case from 1904 of Ion Hanford Perdicaris being kidnapped by bandit Ahmad al-Raisuli in Tangier, Morocco. The bandit demanded $70,000 in ransom (about $7 million in today’s Bidenflated greenbacks).
President Teddy Roosevelt sent gunboats to Morocco and Secretary of State John Hay demanded, “This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” After some of Raisuli’s demands were met, Perdicaris was released. That’s how real presidents act. Action director and writer John Milius made a good film about it, “The Wind and the Lion,” with Sean Connery as Raisuli, Brian Keith as TR and John Huston as Hay.
If the government won’t help you in a case like that, what’s the point even of having a government? And unlike Raisuli, Zelensky is a U.S. puppet. One word from Biden, and he’s gone to his penthouse in Miami, with a new dictator in power in Kiev.
And why didn’t the NY Times, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc., make a stink about about a brother journalist being tortured and murdered? Because they’re regime media. They’re just an extension of Biden’s press office. Typical is Time magazine’s Jan. 11 puff piece cover story on SecState Blinken even as Lira was breathing his last, pneumonic breaths.
Here’s Tucker Carlson, a real journalist, on Jan. 12:
Gonzalo Lira, Sr. says his son has died at 55 in a Ukrainian prison, where he was being held for the crime of criticizing the Zelensky and Biden governments. Gonzalo Lira was an American citizen, but the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture. Several weeks ago we spoke to his father, who predicted his son would be killed.
Tucker included a link to a broadcast on X by himself from last Dec. 9. He also wrote then:
Ep. 47 Gonzalo Lira is an American citizen who’s been tortured in a Ukrainian prison since July, for the crime of criticizing Zelensky. Biden officials approve of this, because they’d like to apply the same standard here. The media agree. Here’s a statement from Gonzalo Lira’s father.
The time links:
(00:00) American Zelensky critic jailed in Ukraine
(05:14) Where is our State Department?
(08:40) Lira arrested after criticizing Biden
(11:49) Is Ukraine the democracy we’re told it is?
Lira’s murder also puts paid to the contention the Zelensky regime is a “democracy” and our $100 billion-plus wasted there was to promote “freedom.” All lies. This hideous war, which let’s remember still might get us all nuked, was a fraud from the beginning. Ukraine easily could have been kept a neutral country. It never could become part of NATO because there’s no way Russia would allow U.S. nuclear missiles 200 miles from Moscow.
Lira’s death also reminds us, as he did, the Kiev regime includes strong Nazi elements. Even NBC, which is tied into the U.S. intel agencies, conceded just after the war started two years ago, “Ukraine's Nazi problem is real, even if Putin's ‘denazification’ claim isn't. Not acknowledging this threat means that little is being done to guard against it.” And nothing has been done since.
Journalism has been my profession for almost five decades. I could joke about that. But some of us try to do it right, despite the low pay and collapsing print platforms.
Lira was a “gonzo journalist.” The name isn’t related to his name of Gonzalo, but was created by the great Hunter S. Thompson, who long wrote for Rolling Stone back when it actually published real journalism instead of pro-regime pap. Thompson’s method was to get high on drugs, do something outrageous at a political event, then write about it. “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72” remains a classic. Not my method, but it produced some great reporting.
Maybe someday again we’ll have a president who protects us.
There is a striking contrast with the case of the WNBA player convicted for bringing drugs into Russia and how her release was deemed worthy of freeing an arms dealer. There always seem to be some prisoners in foreign countries who are more equal than others.
Lira may have violated the laws of Ukraine and his behaviour was extremely imprudent. However, he was entitled to consular assistance and reasonable prison conditions.
If I were a Republican congressman, I would want to know whether Lira received consular assistance and whether the government looked into his prison conditions. But that would actually involve representing the interests of American citizens, which is obviously a low priority in Washington.