Perceptions by Gerry Warner

By the time you read this, I hope everything I say won’t matter. Why’s that, you ask. Simple. I’m writing this a matter of hours before the opening ceremonies of the Sochi Winter Olympics, the critical time when a terrorist attack is most likely.

Hopefully, the opening ceremonies will come off without a hitch, but even after you do read this there will still be almost a fortnight of competition left, lots of time for a crazed suicide bomber to blow him or herself up in an act that has tragically become a touchstone of our times.

I pray to my Creator this doesn’t happen.

And speaking of God, or someone with a God-like complex or maybe a “small man” complex, Russian President Vladimir Putin has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent the terrorist scenario everyone fears from happening. After all, the $51 billion cost of the Sochi extravaganza is the most expensive Olympics ever – summer or winter – and is not called the “Putin Games” for nothing.

When the steely-eyed Russian president and former KGB head appeared before the IOC in 2007 to plead for Russia to be the Olympic host, he claimed the Winter Olympics would symbolize the “new Russia.” Despite Putin’s boast, much of the “Old Soviet Union” seems to be woven into these games as it’s estimated as much as one-third of the Winter Games astronomical construction cost can be attributed to straight corruption on the part of the contractors building the Olympic venues including a healthy sprinkling of Putin’s own political cronies. Nevertheless a recent CBC report shows Putin is serious about making his games secure with the chief organizer of the Sochi Olympics bragging Sochi is “the most secure venue on the planet.”

Dmitry Chernyshenko says in terms of security, Russia will “make history” at the Sochi games. We can only hope the “history” made at Sochi will be good as opposed to tragic. And it may well be good when you consider the measures Russia has taken to protect the winter spectacle.

As the spectators gather and the athletes perform, a massive drone fleet will be in the sky above Sochi watching their every move. Free Wi-Fi is being provided throughout the city, with the inclusion of Deep Packet Inspection technology. This allows security personnel to filter key words out of communications and see who is speaking to whom and saying what. Everyone should expect all their communications and conversations by smart phones, laptops and other technical devices will be “completely transparent,” Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist, told CBC news. All attendees entering the Olympic areas in Sochi must go through physical screenings and be patted down.

Sochi also marks the first Olympics in which all attendees will have to go through background checks before attendance. A battalion of Spetsnaz, the Russian equivalent of Special Ops, has been deployed in the mountains outside of Sochi. Their directive is to stop possible militants from crossing into Sochi from the Caucasus. The sewers are being searched, the mighty Russian Naval fleet is patrolling ominously offshore and attendees are confined to secure areas if they wish to demonstrate.

It’s even rumored that camera surveillance is being carried on in some Sochi hotel bathrooms! As George Orwell once famously said, “Big Brother” is watching. Indeed he is, but will it be enough? Time alone will tell.

Surely it goes without saying, $51 billion is an obscene amount of money for we humans to watch ‘games.’ Think, if spent wisely, how far $51 billion would go to alleviate world poverty, cure cancer or insert your favourite cause here.

But we humans are fallible creatures and we’ll do what we do.

Let’s just hope that no one gets killed at the Sochi Games, athlete or otherwise.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and Cranbrook City Councillor. His opinions are his own.

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