RIP Stephen F. Cohen, a friend and guide who spent the last four years of his life standing against a tidal wave of hysterical
Cold War hostility with elegance and erudition. His intellectual courage was anchored in experience and scholarship his
antagonists could never match. Please watch the attached clip from CNN.
We are all reeling today from the shock that Steve Cohen is no longer with us. What an incalculable loss to the U.S.-Russia
field of expertise at a time when we most need Steve’s sane, seasoned voice coming to us from decades of his distilled wisdom.
Upon hearing of Steve’s passing, I instinctively went to my shelves and pulled down the book, “Stephen Cohen, the Soviet Union
and Russia”, the front cover of which shows Steve and Katerina, decades younger, standing with the Kremlin wall in the
background. This is a book of tributes and comments by Steve’s Russian colleagues. It is very telling that he was/is so honored
by Russians and Americans alike.
No one can fill Steve’s shoes, but all of us can redouble our efforts to get back to Russia today, to do the type of
sleuth work between cultures for which Steve was known. We can take up his mission to insist that Americans forego
propaganda and become aware of the great need to be better informed on relations between our two countries before it is too late.
Nothing would be more fitting to Steve’s memory than if his passing could stimulate a new wave of Americans seriously
exploring rapprochement between our two nations. Let us ponder in this direction and plan accordingly.
Stephen F. Cohen's grandfather emigrated to the United States from
Lithuania (then part of the
Russian Empire) only able to speak
Lithuanian, Russian
[2]
Stephen Cohen was born in 1938 in Owensboro,
Kentucky where his father owned a golf course,[3]
and attended Indiana University Bloomington,
where he earned a B.S. degree and an M.A. degree in Russian Studies. While studying in
England, he went on a four-week trip to the
Soviet Union, where he became interested in its history
and politics. Cohen, who received his Ph.D. in government and Russian studies at
Columbia University, became a professor of politics
and Russian studies at Princeton University in 1968,
where he taught until 1998, and has been teaching at
New York University since.
Since 1998, Cohen has been professor of Russian Studies and History at New York University, where he teaches a course titled "Russia
Since 1917." He previously taught at Princeton University. He has written several books including those listed below. He is also
a CBS News consultant as well as a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations.
Cohen has a son and a daughter from his first marriage to opera singer Lynne Blair, from whom he is divorced. Cohen is now married
to Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the
progressive magazine The Nation, where he is also a contributing editor. They
have one daughter.
... ... ...
Cohen asserts that US foreign policy is responsible for the continuation of
Cold War hostilities between the two countries despite its
ostensible end in 1991, citing NATO's eastward expansion as evidence
for his hypothesis.[8][9]
Cohen participated in a Munk Debate over the proposal "Be it resolved the West should engage not isolate Russia…" He, together
with Vladimir Posner, argued in favor. They were
opposed by Anne Applebaum and
Garry Kasparov. The opposing side won by 10%.[10]
After the Coup in Ukraine in 2014 for several years I listened weekly to the John
Batchelor show when he interviewed Russia scholar the late Stephen Cohen.
From those conversations I learned that Ukraine is politically divided EAST (pro European
Union) / WEST (pro Russian) (a bit like the United States is divided RED / BLUE).
Politically by vote Ukraine was close to 50% pro E.U., 50% pro Russia.
After the Coup Crimea voted to return to Russia thus making the political breakdown of
Ukraine more pro E.U.
Forbes Magazine in 2008 republished an interview with Soviet critic Alexander
Solzhenitsyn
Solzhenitsyn, among other things, noted 1) in 1919 Lenin in bringing Ukraine into the
Soviet Union gave Ukraine "several Russian provinces to assuage her feelings," 2) that when
in 1954 Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine Sevastopol was not transferred to Ukraine as
Sevastopol was a military city subject to the Central Government of the U.S.S.R.
I would note that Khrushchev's transfer of Crimea to Ukraine violated Soviet Law /
Constitution as the people of Crimea were not asked if they wanted to be transferred.
At the time I did some searching about the history of Crimea and Ukraine and it turns out
that shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union Crimea wanted to separate from Ukraine and
the Central Government of Ukraine threatened to invade Crimea.
The Central Government of Ukraine in its Constitution gave Crimea a special status not
given other provinces.
I would note that in October 1962 Joe Biden was 19 years 11 months old and likely a
college student. In October 1962 the world came close to ending (at least a good deal of the
so called civilized world) with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
However, in 2014, ignoring the warning of Robert F. Kennedy of the need to put yourself in
the other Country's shoes, Biden supported the violent Coup which essentially included a
violent takeover of the Ukrainian Parliament (Rada) by violent protesters, much akin to the
Trump Taliban taking over the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
It seems that Biden thought that NATO could just move into Sevastopol and take over not
just the port of the Russian navy, but the Russian Navy itself.
"... I hate virtually all of Trump's policies. I hate his stupidity in continually hiring people who hated him. He could have turned to members of the genuine left -- men such as Stephen Cohen -- for advice. ..."
"... n a classic act of projection, woke Dems accuse Trump of not conceding, whereas in fact they are the ones who never conceded the presidency in 2016. This is so obvious, and yet it has apparently become invisible to most!!! Memory hole opened up like a crack in the earth behind each step. ..."
"... The gullibility of Trump is astounding. He did everything to keep the swamp happy, to keep Israel happy, flipped on Nato and on Russia, had hawks left and right and at the end he will be discarded like a used condom. ..."
"... can't help but think that Donald Trump is a man with no common sense, lacking the real conviction of his words and just not very bright or he was to some degree willfully complicit in this now obviously dire state the U.S. finds itself. ..."
"... If anyone thinks there is some good news because this murderous, warring empire is coming to an end, I suggest you think again. The war machine is still fully intact and funded. The international bankers who are in complete control are buying up everything and are planning on a 'reset' dictated by them. To the world! Understandably, there will likely be a few countries who do not feel inclined to agree with this reset and it's terms. There will have to be war to correct this thinking, even if a billion or more are killed. The more the merrier. Less 'useless eaters' to deal with. ..."
Mr. Roberts is right on point when he says that Trump will be locked up.
The people running the United States are going to make an example of Trump. They will send
a message that no "outsider" should ever again dare to run for President.
Trump will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
I fear you are right. In this case it might be better if he weren't such a street fighter,
because standing up for himself to me isn't worth the price he will pay. He should get
himself and his family post haste to a country with no extradition and simply live the rest
of his life in peace. No one needs the vitriol that has been and will continue to be heaped
on him.
Trump _should_ spend the rest of his life behind bars -- for contributing to the deaths of
tens of thousands of human beings. Ordinary Syrians, Iranians, Cubans, and Venezuelans died
because of the murderous sanctions Washington put on their countries, and Pres. Trump did
nothing to help -- and in fact, intensified them.
Very similar to his indifference to the plight of Edward Snowden & Julian Assange.
Trump is a monster of self-centredness. In fact, in the words of his own former White House
Chief of Staff, he is 'the most damaged human being I have ever met.' Just the sort of
creature we would expect to find as head of the US empire
I'm afraid you are spot on -- Trump lies to the World when he was running for President
& then broke almost all of his promises -especially to drain the Swamp. He also
unforgivably allowed the Jews to take over Palistinian land etc. He has alot to answer for
even if he wasn't as War like as the 3 Presidents before him.
YOu re problably right, Jimmy.
But it turns out differently when one gets the point where Trump locked up prospect here is
not him but a whole lot of american people trying to get rid of globalism and the need for
wars
Who might be buried up along with him.
But not a word about the crimes of those who preceded him, which included the ultimate
crime, that of engaging in unjustified warfare?
Your post implies you have a standard of behaviour you are judging Trump by. By definition
it must be universally applied, otherwise all you are seeking is the selective imposition of
your view.
I agree. If Trump deserves lockup, so do Obama, Bush, and the Clintons.
I hate virtually all of Trump's policies. I hate his stupidity in continually hiring
people who hated him. He could have turned to members of the genuine left -- men such as
Stephen Cohen -- for advice.
But that is not the point. Since 2016 those who tried to eliminate Trump did so not for
his real crimes but for made-up. Basically his crime of being president in the first
place.
I n a classic act of projection, woke Dems accuse Trump of not conceding, whereas in
fact they are the ones who never conceded the presidency in 2016. This is so obvious, and yet
it has apparently become invisible to most!!! Memory hole opened up like a crack in the earth
behind each step.
Trump's crime, for which he may actually be locked up, was in truth just winning the
presidency in 2016 and humiliating Hillary (whom everyone hated anyhow). I am becoming quite
terrified of people I have known all my my life and even am related to.
Corrected assessment. His wealth and his 5 children (and their future) are too much of a
liability for him to do the necessary. His policy of appeasement will not work though with
the rabid bolshevik kabal.
I think he and his family will be persecuted and likely prosecuted unless the has the
foresight to move to Russia and save his skin.
The gullibility of Trump is astounding. He did everything to keep the swamp happy, to
keep Israel happy, flipped on Nato and on Russia, had hawks left and right and at the end he
will be discarded like a used condom.
Russia saw it from the get go, at the end he will have the full weight of both parties
against him, and instead of locking her up it will be the other way around. The cowards have
no sense of decency, they will not show any good will like he did.
Trump betrayed his base, failed to organize again and again, put his trust in all the
wrong people and now is done. I'll be surprised if he doesn't face jailtime on some trumped
up charges.
For all his charisma and good intentions he turned out a clueless clown, sad clown at the
end. History will not be kind, and neither will the victors.
True Americans have seen their last train leave the station, it will take time to realize
that there are no more trains. Game over.
I thought this was a good summation by Dr. Roberts. I can't help but think that Donald
Trump is a man with no common sense, lacking the real conviction of his words and just not
very bright or he was to some degree willfully complicit in this now obviously dire state the
U.S. finds itself. Maybe he owed the Rothschild clan a favour.
If anyone thinks there is some good news because this murderous, warring empire is
coming to an end, I suggest you think again. The war machine is still fully intact and
funded. The international bankers who are in complete control are buying up everything and
are planning on a 'reset' dictated by them. To the world! Understandably, there will likely
be a few countries who do not feel inclined to agree with this reset and it's terms. There
will have to be war to correct this thinking, even if a billion or more are killed. The more
the merrier. Less 'useless eaters' to deal with.
Try to see something good in creation every day. Try to do good every day. This world as
it is does not have much time. Someone said that what cannot go on forever won't! At some
point, the One who gives life to all will say it is enough. Some of us just celebrated his
most blessed nativity.
This guy biden is king of promises, and as every year goes by and so many promises are not
met, don't think these people wont show up on D.C.'s doorstep looking for revenge.
Who better to preside over the collapse of the empire? The usual rules will apply: the
feckless Dems – always at their abysmal worst when they assume power – will blame
the "evil Reps" for everything that goes wrong (and there will be plenty – although
none of it will ever be discussed publicly!), and the Reps will be at their sterling
obstructionist best. Talk of impeachment for Biden – who will be nowhere in sight for
most of his term – will linger throughout his term, while Trump will soon be prosecuted
and jailed, his entire administration canceled from the official histories, with Queen
Hillary named "Presidentess in Exile" for 2016-2020 due to alleged Russian interference with
her rightful coronation. The Empire will trumpet from on high for all to hear that this
signals the glorious victory of US Democracy (angelic chorus sounds here) over the forces of
darkness, or some such agitprop; and the skies will clear, the birds will sing, and a rosy
glow will return to the cheeks of all the fair maidens and indeterminant gendered of our
great land. The masks, of course, will remain firmly in place, as the "new normal" slowly
becomes merely business as usual, and the sheeple graze contentedly in their prison stalls,
content in the knowledge that Big Brother is looking out for their health and welfare, at
least until the ritual sacrificial slaughter of the lambs should be deemed necessary. For the
good of all, of course. Should all make for some excellent reality TV.
Well the empire is going to collapse the citizens before it collapses, and even before the
empire collapse comes a global scare of epic proportions to shake and rattle the cage for
those whom are not prepared.
Trump isn't going anywhere. I was at the rally in DC and listened to his
entire speech on the ellipse. He stated that he would not concede. With
this assurance why would the demonstrators have any reason to aggressively
breach the Capitol building? The whole thing was a staged provocation by antifa.
There are videos of how this was staged all over the internet. Let us all
hope and pray that the Scarlet(Whore) color revolution against Trump is finally
eradiated and extirpated now that all the Deep Satanists have been exposed for
their participation in the coup and election fraud.
The question has been asked – what is the US military going to do? Will they just
stay put and watch the theft unfold?
Whilst many commentators were soiling themselves in phantasies of a pro trump military coup
to end the charade, drain the swamp and burn down DC, PCR had a very clear view (expressed
elsewhere): why would the military object to a new leadership if it promises more war, more
blood, more money? It won't, it will welcome it in fact.
Be it as it may, and despite all the stinkin' lies about the election I would think it is
too tall an order for a non-murrican to mourn the self-destruction of the most evil, ghastly,
ruthless hegemon the world has seen in the last 100 years.
I second the sentiment. It's not even that. The media are full of Muricans' moaning about
their fate. It's everywhere – and on top of that, the scumbags are accusing China and
Russia for their "tribulations".
We don't care and we don't want to hear about how hard the life is for Billy Bob who would
die for the very criminals that have condemned him to a life of meth, moonshine and
malingering – while telling him that he is solely responsible for his own miserable
existence.
There is a huge big world elsewhere that is currently booming – thousand flowers are
blooming despite the oppression by the parasitical cancerous sub-empire – and yet, we
obsess over whether Trump is a fraud or not.
I suppose it provides a great platform for ranting :-)
Earlier this year, our friend and colleague
Stephen Cohen passed away. His contributions to the field of Russian, East European, and
Eurasian Studies will be felt for years to come. Professor Cohen was a historian, but his
legacy extends far beyond his scholarly work. Every year, the Stephen Cohen
Fellowship -- established on Professor Cohen's initiative and supported by Katrina vanden Heuvel
and the Kat Foundation -- funds the graduate education for master's students in the Department
of Russian & Slavic Studies at NYU. Professor Cohen has also helped enable doctoral
students to conduct dissertation research in Russia through the Cohen-Tucker Fellowship .
As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States, we give thanks to Stephen
Cohen for not only his work in the REEES field but for the generosity he, Katrina vanden
Heuvel, and the Kat Foundation have shown to budding Russia scholars. We honor him today by
publishing the testimonials of some of current and former students who have benefitted from
Cohen Fellowships.
Natasha Bluth (Cohen Fellowship)
The Stephen Cohen Fellowship enabled me to continue my studies of the former Soviet Union,
not only easing the financial burden of graduate school, but also providing the opportunity to
merge journalistic training with area studies, engage with a wide range of scholars and
regional specialists, and conduct field research in Ukraine. The support and encouragement
Stephen Cohen offered at our annual fellowship alumni dinners also inspired me to pursue a PhD
in sociology in order to explore post-Soviet civil society, nationalism, and gender from a
social-scientific perspective.
Michael Coates (Cohen-Tucker Fellowship)
During the 2018-19 academic year, I held a Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Fellowship, which I
used to fund over a year of archival research in Russia on the history of the Great Soviet
Encyclopedia. The fellowship allowed me to visit more than a dozen archives in Moscow and Saint
Petersburg, and to copy thousands of pages of original documents. Had I not been able to carry
out this archival work, I would not have been able to write my dissertation. The travel that
the Fellowship enabled was also personally significant to me, because I had never been to
Russia before I arrived in Moscow for my research year, even though I had already been studying
the country and its language for several years. It is one thing to read books about a
particular place, but actually experiencing life there first-hand is quite another, and has
been essential to the development of my understanding of the region. I am extremely grateful to
Prof. Cohen and Ms. vanden Heuvel for their generosity in funding the next generation of Russia
specialists.
Stephen F. Cohen performed a great service in the last four years as he relentlessly
refuted the great Russiagate hoax which not only distorted our political life but seriously
wounded US-Russia relations for years to come. That hoax is a threat to world peace and Prof.
Cohen from the very first saw through it. Both in his writings for The Nation and his near
weekly conversations with John Batchelor of ABC radio rebutted it clearly, eloquently and at
times with good humor. How very much he is missed.
Trump's election, Russiagate and the smear campaign against Julian Assange have deluded and
disoriented many "left" organizations.
"I was shocked at the virulent animosity to anything Putin."
I returned from a delegation to
Russia a year ago, so am now more sensitive to the pervasive and persistent anti-Russia
propaganda in this country. To prepare for my trip, I read Stephen Cohen's War
with Russia? , which I believe is an unimpeachable source of information. So I was
dismayed to learn of his recent death, because he was a voice of reason amidst the salivating
war fever. Caitlin Johnstone does justice to
his memory: " We should heed the dire warnings that Cohen spent his last breaths issuing. We
should...call for détente with Russia and China. We should begin creating an opposition
to this world-threatening flirtation with armageddon before it is too late."
The delegation was led by Sharon Tennison, founder of Center for Citizens Initiatives , which has been taking citizen
diplomacy delegations to the USSR and Russia since 1983. On her recent 84th birthday she
published a letter about where she sees current US/Russian relations ,
including the risk of nuclear war. I posted her letter to a listserv of the National Lawyers
Guild, an organization I have been a member of for 37 years. Although I have previously
exposed the NLG for losing its political compass, I was shocked at the virulent animosity
to anything Putin, or even Russian, in the emails it generated.
Unfortunately, this anti-Russia bias is not unique to the Guild. Trump's election,
Russiagate, and the smear campaign against Julian Assange have deluded and disoriented many
organizations and individuals with profoundly critical and activist traditions, including the
Pacifica radio
network ,
Democratic Socialists of America and Democracy Now! Since COVID, China is now in the US
crosshairs as well, with increased risk of catastrophe. The intent of this article is to expose
this extremely dangerous political tendency, with the Guild as but one example, because it is
increasing international hostilities, at our peril. What we desperately need is an anti-war
movement.
"China is now in the US crosshairs as well."
I shared with a retired lawyer and fellow-member of the Russia delegation that a Guild
member said I would create more chaos than clarity on the left if I exposed the Guild. She
responded "'You will create more chaos than clarity on the Left,' sounds like old-time,
1930's communism when it was politically incorrect to criticize any defects in the party. Any
organization, or any individual, that lacks the backbone to stand up to criticism and to
examine itself to see if that criticism is warranted, and to self-correct if it is or to
vigorously defend itself if it isn't, is weak, an empty box echoing platitudes it cannot
defend."
Tennison received many positive responses to her birthday letter, such as:
"I thank you for the gift of that wonderfully thoughtful letter!"
"I liked your perspectives on President Putin."
"I think you make a persuasive case."
"I am forwarding your message to others."
Apparently, it's controversial to publish group emails anonymously without the author's
consent. I told Tennison that the many Guild responses were largely hostile to her point of
view and asked if it was ethical to expose them. She said, " I think you should expose them
on their ungrounded biases. Tell them to go see the country that was collapsing from communism
and then robbed blind by the oligarchs in the 90s, then finally began to get up on its knees by
the early 2000s and today is in amazing shape.What do you mean when you ask 'what are
the ethics?' You should tell the truth! That's the height of ethics!!!"
"You should expose them on their ungrounded biases."
Guild responses, which echo what many "progressive" groups are saying, include: "This is
garbage propaganda... Anyone with a small amount of knowledge of Russia knows this article is
absolutely not true. No matter what you think of the current state of our government, we have
nothing to gain from Putin. There is nothing admirable about him as a leader and there is
nothing admirable about his government. I can't even fathom the motivation for disseminating
this....I am hardly a lover of American MSM propaganda, but I am getting tired of seeing
knee-jerk reactions to any criticism or negative news about Putin or RT...I don't know if
Tennison's piece is propaganda (implying some intent), but it certainly is misguided. I (and
probably a fair number of other folks on this list) have not met Putin and am not particularly
invested in this debate...move this offlist, or set up a 'debates about politicians foreign and
domestic' sublist...I was disputing the accuracy of the author's description of Putin's
character and questioning why Putin's character is being defended on an NLG listserv."
A former comrade, who still probably calls himself a socialist, claimed it is an electoral
issue: "Riva doesn't give a damn if Trump is re-elected by the electoral college,...She even
attacked the NLG for failing to oppose Russia Today having to register as a foreign agent. The
discussion is a total turn-off to new and veteran members alike." Others voiced election
concerns: " Support for Putin is support for Trump...When I see an article like this come,
apparently, out of the blue and unrelated to the NLG's mission, I wonder who benefits from
propping up Putin's character?...It's difficult for me to believe that there are NLG members
who want to rehabilitate Putin's image in order to help the Trump Administration...My fears are
that the election is the motivation for the email supporting Putin."
" Support for Putin is support for Trump."
A Guild member of over 30 years said, "When nonsense like that is sent out by Guild
members it contributes to making the Guild irrelevant." Several others claimed the wisdom
of age and Red-rearing: "My own father was in Local 1199 In the 1930s and recruited and
covered for the absences of NYC Health workers sent to Spain as medics and ambulance drivers in
the Spanish Civil War... what could be more " pinko " than that!...Putin and his boss Leningrad
Mayor Anatoly Sobchak visited Los Angeles in the 1980s on a visit arranged by the LA-St
Petersburg Sister City Committee ( on which I served along with the CEO of Lockheed and other
major LA area companies). A fruit of their visit was booking a float in the Rose Parade
featuring tourism in St. Petersburg! Can't make this up!" [What is wrong with that? I wish
we could build more sister city relationships in Russia. I recently tried to get San Francisco
to consider having a sister city in Russia, and was told it wasn't a good time to do so.]
Another long-term socialist comrade said " in defending, as you do, Putin and Putin's
Russia, you lose credibility with Guild folks who, I suspect, also share our desire to not see
a US-Western World conflict with Russia. It is one thing to defend against red-baiting...as one
called before HUAC during Vietnam, believe me, I am deeply opposed to red-baiting...it is
another to present a picture of Putin which, quite frankly, does not square with reality. (I
know, you believe the western press gives us a false picture of Putin. But there are plenty on
the left, and in the left media, that have a very different assessment of Putin than the woman
writing that letter you sent around.)" It is remarkable that people who challenge my
questioning of the groupthink on Russia, refuse to offer a coherent, written counter to my
perspective or a defense of the groupthink.
And the younger generation: " These kinds of threads are the reason people unsubscribe
from lists and/or are turned away from the NLG altogether. I'm a very new member and am very
disheartened to see this exchange from Guild members who set the example for my generation This
is setting a bad precedent for the Next Gen by putting this BS on the NLG List...Well, speaking
for myself, this Next Gen member is unsubscribing, having applied my own judgment values and
critical thinking skills to the situation...This is a barrier to the Guild's outreach and
membership development, and has encouraged me to channel my energy into other
organizations."
"People who challenge my questioning of the groupthink on Russia, refuse to offer a
coherent, written counter to my perspective."
And of course people use the danger of fascism : "Many of us generally support radical or
left ideals. With the rise of fascism in this country, now, more than ever, we need to promote
inclusion and allyship rather than sectarianism and exclusion?" Does principled debate (let
alone simply posting a letter) imply "sectarianism and exclusion" and foreclose "inclusion and
allyship?" Others said there is an "expectation that we be collegial" and "good to each
other."
One of the very few positive responses came from a member who recently visited Russia:
"I must say I agree with many of those who criticize Tennison's piece on Putin -- but
very much oppose the notion that this list should be reserved for local Guild work. People who
are offended by or oppose comments posted by NLG members shouldn't be able to shut down
contentious discussions. It's easy enough to simply delete a thread that you consider
'irrelevant' -- although I would hope most Guild members would want to engage in discussion
about the countries and leaders that our governing elites and the MSM are attacking in
promotion of US imperial power (i.e. Russia, China, Venezuela, and Iran, for starters).The Guild is an organization of internationalists -- and not limited to local
struggles."
And there was this qualified support: "I agree that we should be very suspect of
Red-baiting news stories on general principle...while holding the nuance of resisting
authoritarianism includes using a critical lens."
A democratic organization requires open discussion and voting on controversial positions.
Until recently, since its founding in 1937, that occurred at the Guild's annual conventions. It
was through such a process that the Guild improved its position on Palestine. I have no problem
being a vocal minority in a democratic organization, but there must be debate for positions to
be clear. I have tried, unsuccessfully, several times over the Trump years -- and the New
McCarthyism -- to have such discussions. If there had been, I would have kept these issues
internal to the organization. The squashing of debate was the catalyst for my airing dirty
laundry, as well as its implications for the broad progressive community.
I was told that I will create "fissure" and "NLG folks will be on the defensive," (about
being called out on their anti-Russia bias?) and an old comrade says he will not respect me if
I expose the Guild's anti-Russia bias by pulling anonymous quotes from Guild members emails. As
to ethics, my Russia delegation comrade says: " Your old comrade favors quashing the truth
in order to present a good face. A false face, in fact. Is it ethical to do that? You are in
the boat that many of us are struggling to stay afloat in. Going against popular opinion
becomes a whole lot more than just a quaint quirk when the stakes are raised -- as they are
right now with the election in view and the Dems seriously worried. It is getting really nasty
out there."
Riva Enteen is a lifelong peace activist, social worker, lawyer, advocate for justice and
editor of"Follow the Money,"a
collection of Pacifica Radio's Flashpoints Interviews.
As we disregarded Russian fears and ignored the chance for a true partnership, Steve worried
about the resumption of hostile relations between our two countries and possibly a new Cold
War.
I draw your attention to the irrefutable fact that Mr. Cohen said that the Buk missile, which
brought down Malaysian Flight 370 over the skies of Donbas, was the Ukraine government "playing
with its new toys and made a big mistake." -- and I draw your attention to the irrefutable fact
that Mr. Cohen said that the Buk missile, which brought down Malaysian Flight 370 over the skies
of Donbas, was the Ukraine government "playing with its new toys and made a big mistake."
He was a real giant in comparison with intellectual scum like Fiona Hill, Michael McFaul and other neocons.
Notable quotes:
"... I tried to explain to American friends what was happening, but quickly realized that ultimately, even friends believe what they read in the newspapers, and the newspapers were pushing the Washington line. Except for Steve Cohen. Steve was the only major figure in America who insisted on remembering the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, like my family members, distrusted and hated the new Kiev government. He spoke of neo-Nazi paramilitiaries who fought for the US-backed government committing war crimes against civilians in eastern Ukraine. He spoke the truth, regardless of how unwieldy it was. ..."
"... There's a lot to say about Steve. He was extraordinarily kind, never forgetting that in geopolitics, the ones who have the most to lose aren't strategists but everyday individuals impacted by policy. He was a consummate teacher, insisting on giving mentees the skills to navigate the world, a real proponent of the Teach a man to fish philosophy. He had facets and stories and memories; he lived life with empathy and gusto. ..."
"... Steve's insistence on speaking the truth about Ukraine and US-Russia relations drew all sorts of attention. America was hurtling toward a new cold war with Russia, and Steve well, from the perspective of Washington's foreign policy establishment, Steve was fucking up the narrative. Steve talked about inconvenient things, things like US-backed war criminals and America's own meddling in Russian affairs; in the process, he himself had become inconvenient. ..."
"... After all, this wasn't some random blogger. This was one of America's foremost Russia experts, a tenured professor at Princeton and New York University, someone who didn't just write about history but had dinner with it, had briefed US presidents, and was friends with legends like Mikhail Gorbachev. Steve had clout earned from decades of brilliant work; by 2014, he was using that clout to throw a wrench in the think tank world. ..."
"... It was something far colder, more sustained, something that ironically the Soviets did to dissidents: a relentless crusade to render the target untouchable, a leper without a platform. The barrage of articles and diatribes hurled at Steve in the national press painted him as not just a dissenter but a supporter of dictators and murderers. It was a vicious, prolonged assault carried out by think tank toadies, the kind of people who win races by kneecapping the competition. ..."
"... I'd often talk with Steve after a new hatchet job or smear on national television. Of course, the attacks were hurtful -- the only way to not be affected was to not care, and Steve cared. But I also noticed he was remarkably free of bitterness. Every time I thought he'd snap, he'd return the next day to write, discuss, keep fighting. ..."
"... It took me a couple of years to understand that what kept Steve going was faith in his beloved institutions. He believed in academia, in scholarship, in discourse, debate, and civility. He believed in the capacity of everyday people to explore and engage with their world, he believed in Russia, and he always believed in America. He believed in these things far more than he believed in the power of today's warmongers. ..."
"... In 1967 Noam Chomsky wrote an article in the NY Review entitled "the Responsibility of Intellectuals" the first sentence ran like this: "IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.". Stephen Cohen did precisely that when all the parrots and pundits were lined up against him. ..."
"... Always I was skeptical of prevailing scholarly interpretive trends on the Soviet experience that were echoed by colleagues claiming expertise on the subject. Cohen provided the foundation for my skepticism and invigorated my lectures on American foreign policy. ..."
"... Once Cohen plied his knowledge against the hysterical narrative that culminated in 4 years of frothing neo-McCarthyism (by the freakin' "left," no less), we were no longer gonna see him on the PBS newshour any more likely than we would and will see chris hedges, chomsky, or margaret kimberly. ..."
"... His book War With Russia? was an oasis of counter-narrative when I picked it up. Losing voices like his is immeasurable as we hurtle toward total war with Russia and/or China, both of whom are finally, naturally, and perfectly predictably beginning to draw a line in the sand. ..."
I first reached out to Stephen Cohen because I was losing my mind.
In the spring of 2014, a war broke out in my homeland of Ukraine. It was a horrific war in a
bitterly divided nation, which turned eastern Ukraine into a bombed-out wasteland. But that's
not how it was portrayed in America. Because millions of eastern Ukrainians were against the
US-backed government, their opinions were inconvenient for the West. Washington needed a clean
story about Ukraine fighting the Kremlin; as a result, US media avoided reporting about the
"wrong" half of the country. Twenty-plus million people were written out of the narrative, as
if they never existed.
I tried to explain to American friends what was happening, but quickly realized that
ultimately, even friends believe what they read in the newspapers, and the newspapers were
pushing the Washington line. Except for Steve Cohen. Steve was the only major figure in America
who insisted on remembering the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, like my family members,
distrusted and hated the new Kiev government. He spoke of neo-Nazi paramilitiaries who fought
for the US-backed government committing war crimes against civilians in eastern Ukraine. He
spoke the truth, regardless of how unwieldy it was.
And so I e-mailed him, asking for guidance as I began my own writing career. Of course,
there were many who clamored for Steve's time, but I had an advantage over others. Steve and I
were both night owls, real night owls, the kind who have afternoon tea at three am. It
was then, when the east coast was sleeping, that he became my mentor and friend.
There's a lot to say about Steve. He was extraordinarily kind, never forgetting that in
geopolitics, the ones who have the most to lose aren't strategists but everyday individuals
impacted by policy. He was a consummate teacher, insisting on giving mentees the skills to
navigate the world, a real proponent of the Teach a man to fish philosophy. He had
facets and stories and memories; he lived life with empathy and gusto.
But one thing Steve taught me is to stick to my strengths, and truth be told, there are
others who can describe his life better than I. I'll stick to what I learned during our
conversations at three in the morning, which is that, above all else, Stephen F. Cohen was a
man of faith.
Steve's insistence on speaking the truth about Ukraine and US-Russia relations drew all
sorts of attention. America was hurtling toward a new cold war with Russia, and Steve well,
from the perspective of Washington's foreign policy establishment, Steve was fucking up the
narrative. Steve talked about inconvenient things, things like US-backed war criminals and
America's own meddling in Russian affairs; in the process, he himself had become
inconvenient.
After all, this wasn't some random blogger. This was one of America's foremost Russia
experts, a tenured professor at Princeton and New York University, someone who didn't just
write about history but had dinner with it, had briefed US presidents, and was friends with
legends like Mikhail Gorbachev. Steve had clout earned from decades of brilliant work; by 2014,
he was using that clout to throw a wrench in the think tank world.
The DC apparatchiks couldn't discredit Steve's credentials or track record -- he'd predicted
events in Ukraine and elsewhere years before they occurred. They couldn't intimidate him --
he'd faced far worse threats, like the KGB. Instead, they set out to turn him into an
America-hating, Putin-loving pariah.
This went beyond an ad hominem campaign. It was something far colder, more sustained,
something that ironically the Soviets did to dissidents: a relentless crusade to render the
target untouchable, a leper without a platform. The barrage of articles and diatribes hurled at
Steve in the national press painted him as not just a dissenter but a supporter of dictators
and murderers. It was a vicious, prolonged assault carried out by think tank toadies, the kind
of people who win races by kneecapping the competition.
I'd often talk with Steve after a new hatchet job or smear on national television. Of
course, the attacks were hurtful -- the only way to not be affected was to not care, and Steve
cared. But I also noticed he was remarkably free of bitterness. Every time I thought he'd snap,
he'd return the next day to write, discuss, keep fighting.
It took me a couple of years to understand that what kept Steve going was faith in his
beloved institutions. He believed in academia, in scholarship, in discourse, debate, and
civility. He believed in the capacity of everyday people to explore and engage with their
world, he believed in Russia, and he always believed in America. He believed in these things
far more than he believed in the power of today's warmongers.
Steve liked movies and would often end a lecture with a movie reference to drive home the
thesis. When I think of him, I think of the ending of The Shawshank Redemption , the
line about Andy Dufresne crawling through filth and coming out clean on the other side. Steve
didn't live in a movie; I can't claim he emerged unscathed. What he did was come through
without bitterness or cynicism. He refused to turn away from the ugliness, but he didn't allow
it to blind him to beauty. He walked with grace. And he lost neither his convictions nor his
faith.
Lev
Golinkin Lev Golinkin is the author of A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka,
Amazon's Debut of the Month, a Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers program
selection, and winner of the Premio Salerno Libro d'Europa. Golinkin, a graduate of Boston
College, came to the US as a child refugee from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov (now
called Kharkiv) in 1990. His writing on the Ukraine crisis, Russia, the far right, and
immigrant and refugee identity has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los
Angeles Times, CNN, The Boston Globe, Politico Europe, and Time (online), among other venues;
he has been interviewed by MSNBC, NPR, ABC Radio, WSJ Live and HuffPost Live.
Pierre Guerlain says: October 1, 2020 at 12:42 pm
In 1967 Noam Chomsky wrote an article in the NY Review entitled "the Responsibility of
Intellectuals" the first sentence ran like this: "IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals
to speak the truth and to expose lies.". Stephen Cohen did precisely that when all the
parrots and pundits were lined up against him. He was a Mensch. History will bear him
the historian out.
Valera Bochkarev says to Lance Haley: October 1, 2020 at 11:09 am
Hmm, who's the apologist here ?
If the Ukraine is SO sovereign how is it I did not see any outrage in your diatribe
against 'Toria, Pyatt and the rest orchestrating the Maidan putsch or the $5Billion US spent
on softening up the ukraine for the regime change ?
I believe in numbers, as in the number of military bases any given country has surrounding
the ones it wants to subvert, in the amount of money allocated to vilify and eventually bring
down the "unwanted" regimes and the quantity and 'quality' of sanctions imposed against those
regimes; and the sum of all of the above perpetrated against humanity in the past 75 or so
years.
Your vapid drivel, Mr Haley, evaporates almost without a trace once seen with those
parameters in mind.
Numbers don't lie.
Michael Batinski says: September 30, 2020 at 5:48 pm
Let me add from the perspective of an American historian who taught for forty years in a
midwestern university. From the start I depended on William Appleman Williams to keep
perspective and to counter prevailing interpretive trends.
Always I was skeptical of
prevailing scholarly interpretive trends on the Soviet experience that were echoed by
colleagues claiming expertise on the subject. Cohen provided the foundation for my skepticism
and invigorated my lectures on American foreign policy.
I will always be thankful.
Michael Batinski
Tim Ashby says: September 30, 2020 at 2:37 pm
The smothering agitprop in America trumps even Goebbels and co. with its beautifully
dressed overton window and first-amendment-free-press bullshit.
Once Cohen plied his knowledge against the hysterical narrative that culminated in 4 years
of frothing neo-McCarthyism (by the freakin' "left," no less), we were no longer gonna see
him on the PBS newshour any more likely than we would and will see chris hedges, chomsky, or
margaret kimberly.
Let's face it, we were lucky to win the editorial fight to even give him
space in the Nation.
His book War With Russia? was an oasis of counter-narrative when I picked it up. Losing
voices like his is immeasurable as we hurtle toward total war with Russia and/or China, both
of whom are finally, naturally, and perfectly predictably beginning to draw a line in the
sand.
One of the most vibrantly alive people I met, André Vltchek, just died . Though he barely
made it past his mid-fifties he got in a lot more living than a hundred average Americans who
live to collect their pensions. Allah yarhamhu.
In honor of this great Truth Jihadi we're replaying this 2018 interview:
The West claims to be the "free world" -- the global leader in human rights,
humanitarianism, and free expression. Globetrotting independent journalist André Vltchek , who joins us from Borneo,
isn't buying it. His latest
essay begins:
Western culture is clearly obsessed with rules, guilt, submissiveness and punishment.
By now it is clear that the West is the least free society on Earth. In North America and
Europe, almost everyone is under constant scrutiny: people are spied on, observed, their
personal information is being continually extracted, and the surveillance cameras are used
indiscriminately.
Life is synchronized and managed. There are hardly any surprises.
One can sleep with whomever he or she wishes (as long as it is done within the 'allowed
protocol'). Homosexuality and bisexuality are allowed. But that is about all; that is how far
'freedom' usually stretches.
Rebellion is not only discouraged, it is fought against, brutally. For the tiniest
misdemeanors or errors, people end up behind bars. As a result, the U.S. has more prisoners per
capita than any other country on Earth, except the Seychelles.
Andre taunted rightwing elites and illness – with a passion. I guess one of them
caught up.
Living hard seems like a death-wish, maybe it was. Staring at darkness messes people up
and he traveled again and again into the hearts of darkness across the planet because he
wanted to be a modern Wilfred Burchett. He was one of the greats. My condolences to his
family and friends.
Peace to Stephen Cohen too. You both will be missed.
André Vltchek was not an intellectual heavyweight. What is fascinating about his
life-story is how and who financed. That should be easy for insiders to fish out, and
insiders there be.
As to my humble opinion, Chomsky was neither. From all angles, his pre-fabricated
prestige, his in-group attitudes, his encrusted prestance, pettiness, pedantry, always within
convention, his factoid approach, the channels of communication, the lack of any systemic
approach, his "good guys bad guys" copper´ approach, did not warrant the few hours
listening in on his tune and omni-presence. His numb personality, contrary to the combative
Vltchek is noted as a minor.
Some "intellectuals" have half a page of original content in them over the course of a
life-time (not the same as career (n´est ce pas Pinker?)), most have none. "History
repeat itself", through the bull-horns of public intellectuals. They both practiced a sort of
journalism that is superficial (accent on the superficial) agenda driven.
Ex-CIA John Kiriakou stated that the CIA was attempting to recruit just about anyone that
they were able to starting in the sixties ranging from Hollywood actors/actresses, musicians,
writers, journalists, artists, business people, just about anyone. Operation Mockingbird is
still widely used even if it is no longer regerred to it as Operation Mockingbird.
André Vltchek (1962-2020) was the son of a Czech nuclear physicist father, and a
Russian-Chinese artist-architect mother, born in Soviet-era St Petersburg (then Leningrad).
He spent part of his childhood as well in the famous Czech beer city of Pilsen.
Western culture is clearly obsessed with rules, guilt, submissiveness and
punishment.
What culture is not? Every single population on Earth wants to survive, Westerners want
non-Aryans to survive, but the mechanism is always the same. The Stasi, the Gestapo, the CIA,
the KGB – they all breathed air, and they all tortured dissenters. Turkey was almost
overthrown in 2016. The Shah of Iran was, as were Hosni Mubarak and Gaddafi in Egypt and
Libya. Bashar is facing quite a lot of criticism for being free – that critique comes
in the form of bombs and jihadi freedom fighters. The Saudi Prince is wise for strangling and
beheading Khashoggi. The USSR disintegrated after they had shut down the GULAG.
As a result, the U.S. has more prisoners per capita than any other country on Earth,
except the Seychelles.
In 2012, the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in [the DPR of Korea] estimated 150,000 to
200,000 are incarcerated, based on testimonies of defectors from the state police bureau,
which roughly equals 600–800 people incarcerated per 100,000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
The World Prison Brief puts the United States' incarceration rate at 655 per 100,000.
Okay. If the West is the least free society on the planet, why the heck do all these
third-world people keep trying to move there? It is plain that Vltchek's thinking flunks the
real-world reality test.
The reality is, the rest of the world is worse off than the West, or people wouldn't keep
trying to leave the third world for the West.
@Anon ey want to have freedom of their stupid religious beliefs, not freedom from
religion. They still don't know that freedom of religion is not worth anything if it also
doesn't guarantee freedom from religion.
Thomas Jefferson tried very hard to explain this to them, but Yankee morons have never
learned what Jefferson tried to teach them. (With some notable exceptions, though, who,
however, have absolutely no political power.)
Vltchek is/was right: American/Western civilization [sic] (siphilization, rather) is
bankrupt and inhuman. It can only offer an abundance of material goods and military weapons
as if the only goals of human life were material things and warfare.
"... Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of history. This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn up in April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby ..."
"... In the early 2000s, when its influence reached its most dangerous height, military and security elites would couch it in the terms of "full spectrum dominance." ..."
"... Bhadrakumar describes how the 'west', through its own behavior, created a mighty block that now opposes its dictates. He concludes ..."
"... Quintessentially, Russia and China contest a set of neoliberal practices that have evolved in the post-World War 2 international order validating selective use of human rights as a universal value to legitimise western intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. On the other hand, they also accept and continuously affirm their commitment to a number of fundamental precepts of the international order -- in particular, the primacy of state sovereignty and territorial integrity, the importance of international law, and the centrality of the United Nations and the key role of the Security Council. ..."
"... The rules are follow the dictates of our western neo-colonial institutions like the World Bank, the IMF et all. ..."
"... Its a pretty simple concept backed by the attack dog of the US military. ..."
"... 'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another. The term was invented to avoid having to say 'rule of law', which invited criticism because even the most minimal amount of law (such as Geneva conventions, ICC etc) was rejected in practice and in policy by the leading members of the actually existing world order. ..."
"... Rumor says the "Wolfowitz Doctrine" also envisioned the balkanization of Russia (the document is still classified, but it leaked to a NYT journalist at the time, who published a report on it). ..."
"... It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over the world. But as the "exceptionalist" western countries decline, they will go even crazier and crazier and there will be full blown hysteria. ..."
"... In this sense, the rule based order will be over as there will be only disorder and animalistic, crazed western rage and bullying. The West is like a trapped animal. It will start pouncing, raging and snarling like a wild animal. This is the real nature of the West. A hungry wild animal that needs to feed. ..."
"... But behind the liberal mask, there are hateful eyes and gnashing teeth, and hunger and greed for other people's resources. ..."
"... Expressed in words, the West's face says "I'm the best and you are nothing! Give me your stuff! And this is how it will forever be!" ..."
"... As Putin has said, the US is no longer agreement capable. ..."
"... Instead of bringing Russia into the Western liberal democracies (with the threat of major nuclear war now drastically reduced) the now Anglo-Zionist Empire just looted it. ..."
"... Actually the Trump Administration has done far more against Russia than all US administrations from the last 30 years. Do not listen what they say, look at what they do. Right now the US in a full blown Cold War with Russia with ever increasing attacks ..."
"... Rules based international order .... the U.S. functions as the the Supreme Court for the U.N. , 'we have invoked snapback sanctions and extended the arms embargo on Iran indefinitely and are enforcing it'. UN, 'but your vote failed'. ..."
"... Rules based International Order is the dog whistle for global private finance controlled economies. It is sad that we are in a civilization war with China/Russia about who runs international finance going forward and yet there is no discussion of the subject but instead all sorts of proxy conflicts. ..."
"... The US is not just facing relative decline -- the fact that others are catching up in key ways. The US is also facing absolute decline -- the fact that it is suffering a degradation of capacities and is losing competitive battles in key areas. Examples of absolute decline include the Russian and Chinese military-technological revolutions based on anti-ship and hypersonic missiles and air defense systems; Chinese 5G; China's demonstrative success in suppressing COVID and its overall manufacturing power; the declining quality of life for most Americans; and the collapse of American institutional competence. ..."
"... Related to this, we can't separate these dynamics from the political economy of the states in question. China, in particular, is showing that an interventionist state, with high levels of public ownership, is essential to qualitative power, human security, and economic and social development. ..."
"... Psssst, learning Russian is easier than Chinese and we already know a few Russian words, such as novichok. ..."
"... Russia after the Cold War was a shambles and today it remains a weak economy with a limited role on the world stage, concerned mainly with retaining some of its traditional areas of influence. China is a vastly more formidable competitor. If the US (and the UK, if as usual we tag along) approach the relationship with Beijing with anything like the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period after the Cold War, then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world. [my emphasis] ..."
"... It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over the world. ..."
"... The contest between the Empire and the upstarts is not over by a long shot. What the West HAS lost is the "inevitability" argument. But for the upstarts to actually prevail in their "multi-lateral" vision, they have to actually entice countries to join them despite threats and intimidation from the Empire. ..."
"... The Empire's power-elite KNOW that Russia, China, and allies of Russia-China don't want to be subject to their "rules-based order". The Empire is actively working to undermine, subvert, and divide the countries that oppose it. While also securing their own territories/population via intimidation and propaganda. ..."
"... On rules based disorder and the capitulation of Merkel and her BND lapdogs to the 'hate Russia' fulminations of the UKUSA morons. I see that the German Parliament has NOT TAKEN its red pills these days and is reluctant to swallow the BS. ..."
"... My late father as an army officer prosecuted Japanese war criminals for their atrocities now the Anglo-Zionists are the pre-eminent war criminals and their leaders loudly proclaim "our values" as a pathological and propagandistic form of projection. Is it possible they are unaware of their blatant hypocrisy ? ..."
"... There is no "international law" and no "international order." There is only relative power. And when those powers clash, as seems inevitable, the world is in for a major nuclear war, and probably preceded by several more regional wars. Meanwhile, the US internally is collapsing into economic disaster, social unrest, political and social oppression, infrastructure failure, and medical disasters. We'll probably be in martial law sometime between November 3 and January 21 if not beyond that period, just for starters. ..."
"... America's "Rules-Based International Order" is a Goebbelsian euphemism for a Lies-Based Imperial Order, led by the USA and its war criminal allies (aka the self-styled Free World). ..."
"... The true nature of this America-led order is exposed by the USA's war of aggression against Iraq (which violated international law and had no United Nations sanction) and its decades-long War on Terrorism, which have murdered hundreds of thousands of people and maimed, immiserated, or refugeed millions of more people. ..."
"... The Empire is very much alive and dangerous. Ask Iran, ask Syria, as the Palestinians, ask the Russians, ask the Chinese. Ask numerous African nations. Even Pangloss was not so stupidly naive. ..."
"... quite right. 'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another. ie US and its "allies" is basically asking the rest of the world to finance their (the US et al) version of a welfare state. ..."
"... China and rest of the worlds foreign central banks stopped growing their foreign exchange reserves (on net) in 2014 leaving the US in a sort of limbo. ..."
"... "Major powers maintaining cooperation, at least not engaging in Cold War-style antagonism, is the important foundation of world peace. China is committed to maintaining cooperation among major powers, as well as being flexible in the balance of interests acceptable to all parties. The problem is the Trump administration is hysterically shaping decoupling and confrontation between Beijing and Washington, and has been mobilizing more forces to its side at home and abroad. Those US policymakers are deliberately splitting the world like during the Cold War. ..."
"... The first 'Cold War' was entirely contrived. The US knew the Soviet Union was weak and had no agenda beyond maintaining security and its own reconstruction after WW2. There was no threat of a Western European invasion, or of the USSR spreading revolution globally. All that Cold War ideology is a lie. And the same lying is taking place about China today. No difference. ..."
"... It's good to see discussion here of the nefarious role of the American far-right neocon warmongers in the State Department, intelligence services and military leadership just before the turn of the new century. What I have never seen clearly explained, however, is the connection between these very dangerous forces and the equally cynical and reactionary Israeli politicians and the Mossad, as well as Saudi Arabian officials. ..."
The 'western' countries, i.e. the United States and its 'allies', love to speak of a 'rules based international order'
which they say everyone should follow. That 'rules based order' is a way more vague concept
than the actual rule of law:
The G7 is united by its shared values and commitment to a rules based international order.
That order is being challenged by authoritarianism, serious violations of human rights,
exclusion and discrimination, humanitarian and security crises, and the defiance of
international law and standards.
As members of the G7, we are convinced that our societies and the world have reaped
remarkable benefits from a global order based on rules and underscore that this system must
have at its heart the notions of inclusion, democracy and respect for human rights,
fundamental freedoms, diversity, and the rule of law.
That the 'rules based international order' is supposed to include vague concepts of
'democracy', 'human rights', 'fundamental freedoms', 'diversity' and more makes it easy to
claim that this or that violation of the 'rules based international order' has occurred. Such
violations can then be used to impose punishment in the form of sanctions or war.
That the above definition was given by a minority of a few rich nations makes it already
clear that it can not be a global concept for a multilateral world. That would require a set of
rules that everyone has agreed to. We already had and have such a system. It is called
international law. But at the end of the cold war the 'west' began to ignore the actual
international law and to replace it with its own rules which others were then supposed to
follow. That hubris has come back to bite the 'west'.
Anatol Lieven's recent piece, How
the west lost , describes this moral defeat of the 'west' after its dubious 'victory' in
the cold war:
Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American
geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of
history. This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn
up in April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul
Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and subsequently leaked to the media. Its central
message was:
...
While that 1992 Washington paper spoke of the "legitimate interests" of other states, it
clearly implied that it would be Washington that would define what interests were legitimate,
and how they could be pursued. And once again, though never formally adopted, this "doctrine"
became in effect the standard operating procedure of subsequent administrations. In the early
2000s, when its influence reached its most dangerous height, military and security elites
would couch it in the terms of "full spectrum dominance." As the younger President Bush
declared in his State of the Union address in January 2002, which put the US on the road to
the invasion of Iraq: "By the grace of God, America won the Cold War A world once divided
into two armed camps now recognizes one sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of
America."
But that power has since failed in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, during the 2008
financial crisis and now again in the pandemic. It also created new competition to its role due
to its own behavior:
On the one hand, American moves to extend Nato to the Baltics and then (abortively) on to
Ukraine and Georgia, and to abolish Russian influence and destroy Russian allies in the
Middle East, inevitably produced a fierce and largely successful Russian nationalist
reaction. ...
On the other hand, the benign and neglectful way in which Washington regarded
the rise of China in the generation after the Cold War (for example, the blithe decision to
allow China to join the World Trade Organisation) was also rooted in ideological arrogance.
Western triumphalism meant that most of the US elites were convinced that as a result of
economic growth, the Chinese Communist state would either democratise or be overthrown; and
that China would eventually have to adopt the western version of economics or fail
economically. This was coupled with the belief that good relations with China could be
predicated on China accepting a so-called "rules-based" international order in which the US
set the rules while also being free to break them whenever it wished; something that nobody
with the slightest knowledge of Chinese history should have believed.
The retired Indian ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar touches on the same points in an excellent
series about the new Chinese-Russian alliance:
Bhadrakumar describes how the 'west', through its own behavior, created a mighty block that
now opposes its dictates. He concludes:
Quintessentially, Russia and China contest a set of neoliberal practices that have evolved in
the post-World War 2 international order validating selective use of human rights as a
universal value to legitimise western intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign
states. On the other hand, they also accept and continuously affirm their commitment to a
number of fundamental precepts of the international order -- in particular, the primacy of
state sovereignty and territorial integrity, the importance of international law, and the
centrality of the United Nations and the key role of the Security Council.
While the U.S. wants a vague 'rules based international order' China and Russia emphasize an
international order that is based on the rule of law. Two recent comments by leaders from China
and Russia underline this.
China firmly supports the United Nations' central role in global affairs and opposes any
country acting like boss of the world, President Xi Jinping said on Monday.
...
"No country has the right to dominate global affairs, control the destiny of others or keep
advantages in development all to itself," Xi said.
Noting that the UN must stand firm for justice, Xi said that mutual respect and equality
among all countries, big or small, is the foremost principle of the UN Charter.
No country should be allowed to do whatever it likes and be the hegemon or bully, Xi said.
"Unilateralism is a dead end," he said.
...
International laws should not be distorted or used as a pretext to undermine other countries'
legitimate rights and interests or world peace and stability, he added.
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov went even further by outright rejecting the 'western rules' that the 'rules
based international order' implies:
Ideas that Russia and China will play by sets of Western rules under any circumstances are
deeply flawed , Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with New
York-based international Russian-language RTVI channel.
"I was reading our political scientists who are well known in the West. The following idea
is becoming louder and more pronounced: it is time to stop applying Western metrics to our
actions and stop trying to be liked by the West at any cost . These are very reputable people
and a rather serious statement. It is clear to me that the West is wittingly or unwittingly
pushing us towards this analysis. It is likely to be done unwittingly," Lavrov noted.
"However, it is a big mistake to think that Russia will play by Western rules in any case,
just like thinking this in terms of China."
As an alliance China and Russia have all the raw materials, energy, engineering and
industrial capabilities, agriculture and populations needed to be completely independent from
the 'west'. They have no need nor any desire to follow dubious rules dictated by other powers.
There is no way to make them do so. As M.K. Bhadrakumar concludes
:
The US cannot overwhelm that alliance unless it defeats both China and Russia together,
simultaneously. The alliance, meanwhile, also happens to be on the right side of history.
Time works in its favour, as the decline of the US in relative comprehensive national power
and global influence keeps advancing and the world gets used to the "post-American century."
---
P.S.
On a lighter note: RT , Russia's state sponsored international TV station, has recently
hired Donald Trump
(vid). He will soon host his own reality show on RT . The working title is reportedly:
"Putin's Apprentice". The apprenticeship might give him a chance to learn how a nation that has
failed can be resurrected to its former glory.
Posted by b on September 22, 2020 at 17:59 UTC | Permalink
The Liberal International Order or Pax Americana are synonyms for The
Rules Based Order. The plan that was followed for years was the outline given by Zbigniew
Brzezinski and the Trilateral Commission in The Grand Chessboard to "contain" the ambition of
Russia, China, and Iran over their interest to expand into Central Asia and the Middle East.
Brzezinski changed
in 2016, so did Kissinger, Brzezinski wrote that it was time to make peace and to integrate
with Russia, China and Iran. But the elites had changed by then, newer people had taken
over and no longer followed Brzezinski.
The rules are follow the dictates of our western neo-colonial institutions like the World
Bank, the IMF et all. We will own you and you will do what we say and those are the rules.
Any challenge to our authority will lead to war, economic ruin or both.
Its a pretty simple concept backed by the attack dog of the US military.
'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another.
The term was invented to avoid having to say 'rule of law', which invited criticism
because even the most minimal amount of law (such as Geneva conventions, ICC etc) was
rejected in practice and in policy by the leading members of the actually existing world
order.
Rumor says the "Wolfowitz Doctrine" also envisioned the balkanization of Russia (the document
is still classified, but it leaked to a NYT journalist at the time, who published a report on
it).
It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over the
world. But as the "exceptionalist" western countries decline, they will go even crazier and
crazier and there will be full blown hysteria.
In this sense, the rule based order will be over as there will be only disorder and
animalistic, crazed western rage and bullying. The West is like a trapped animal. It will start pouncing, raging and snarling like a wild
animal. This is the real nature of the West. A hungry wild animal that needs to feed.
All the liberalism is just self-congratulation about how exceptionalist it is. It is born
out of narcisism and self-obsession during the "good times" of the West.
But behind the liberal mask, there are hateful eyes and gnashing teeth, and hunger and
greed for other people's resources.
The real face of it is hateful and snarling. And it will be fully exposed during the next
10 years, as the West goes crazy and it becomes a hungry wild animal that desperately needs
to feed.
Expressed in words, the West's face says "I'm the best and you are nothing! Give me your
stuff! And this is how it will forever be!"
Countries need to stay out from the wild animal and carry a big stick just in case, until
it succumbs from its internal hatreds and contradictions.
As Putin has said, the US is no longer agreement capable. As b. outlines. the US elites no
longer follow the rule of law. This is even true within the US. The US inherited the role
formerly played by the British Empire after WW2.
The national security apparatus of both the
US and the Soviet Union kept the Cold War going. Notice how soon after JFK was assassinated
Khrushchev was deposed. Gorbachev rightly stopped the Soviets superpower regime. As Dmitri Orlov points out - Empire hollowed out the Soviet Union and he sees it doing the same to the
US.
Instead of bringing Russia into the Western liberal democracies (with the threat of major
nuclear war now drastically reduced) the now Anglo-Zionist Empire just looted it. The life
expectancy of Russians fell 7 years in a decade until rescued by Putin.
It can now be seen
that the Nixon-Kissinger opening up to China was not to gain access to its large market
potential but to gain access to hundreds of millions of cheap, disciplined, and educated
workers. The elites starting in the 70s became greedier. Jet travel,electronic communication,
and computers allowed the outsourcing of manufacture.
The spread of air conditioning allowed
even the too hot south to be a location. First in the US as the factories began their march
through the non union southern states onto Mexico. Management from the north could now live
in air conditioned houses, drive air conditioned cars and work in air conditioned offices.
The 70s oil inflation led to stagnation as the unionized labor were powerful enough to get
cost of living raises. With the globalization of labor union power in the US has been
destroyed. As Eric X Li points out China's one party rule actually changes policies easier
than the Western democracies.
So China's government hasn't joined in with the West in just
creating wealth for the top 1% and debt for the real economy.
As b. pointed out, the Anglo
Zionist policies created the mutual benefit partnership of Russia and China. The Chinese belt
and road initiative appears to be intent on creating a large trading zone that could benefit
those involved. The US is just using sanctions and the military to turn sovereign functioning
countries that don't go along with it into failed states and their infrastructure turned to
rubble
Now, the US is forced into puppeteering the UN in order to maintain the illusion of the
'rules based order,' even as it slides further and further away from any meaningful
international cooperation:
Fortunately for the world, the United States took responsible action to stop this from
happening. In accordance with our rights under UNSCR 2231, we initiated the snapback process
to restore virtually all previously terminated UN sanctions, including the arms embargo. The
world will be safer as a result.
The United States expects all UN Member States to fully comply with their obligations
to implement these measures. In addition to the arms embargo, this includes restrictions
such as the ban on Iran engaging in enrichment and reprocessing-related activities, the
prohibition on ballistic missile testing and development by Iran, and sanctions on the
transfer of nuclear- and missile-related technologies to Iran, among others. If UN Member
States fail to fulfill their obligations to implement these sanctions, the United States is
prepared to use our domestic authorities to impose consequences for those failures and ensure
that Iran does not reap the benefits of UN-prohibited activity.
Actually the Trump Administration has done far more against Russia than all US
administrations from the last 30 years. Do not listen what they say, look at what they
do. Right now the US in a full blown Cold War with Russia with ever increasing attacks.
Pompeo talks more or less continually about "China's bullying behaviour". To me it is
wonderful that he can say this with a straight face. (Perhaps it is a result of his lessons
in the CIA on "how to lie better".)All the countries that have engaged with China have
benefitted from it, whether as salesmen or as recipients of aid or loans at advantageous
rates. The countries that have engaged with America have mostly (All?) lost. (The fifty+
countries invaded and wrecked since WW2 or the NATO "allies" or the countries attacked with
sanctions.) Either their economies were destroyed or billions upon billions of dollars were
paid to the US MIC. The NATO member countries have got what from their membership? Formerly,
they had "Protection" from an imaginary Soviet threat, more recently "Protection" from an
equally imaginary Russian threat! Some bargain, that!
Rules based international order .... the U.S. functions as the the Supreme Court for the
U.N. , 'we have invoked snapback sanctions and extended the arms embargo on Iran
indefinitely and are enforcing it'. UN, 'but your vote failed'.
U.S, 'we have the right to seize cargo between any two countries transported in
international waters based on U.S. federal appeals court decision even though the transaction
in no way involves the U.S. We call this Freedom of Navigation and why we need to have
aircraft carriers in the South China Sea and Arabian Gulf'
Rules based International Order is the dog whistle for global private finance controlled
economies.
It is sad that we are in a civilization war with China/Russia about who runs international
finance going forward and yet there is no discussion of the subject but instead all sorts of
proxy conflicts.
Thanks for the posting b as it gets to the core myths around the global private finance
jackboot on the neck of countries in the West.
The US is not just facing relative decline -- the fact that others are catching up in key
ways. The US is also facing absolute decline -- the fact that it is suffering a degradation
of capacities and is losing competitive battles in key areas. Examples of absolute decline
include the Russian and Chinese military-technological revolutions based on anti-ship and
hypersonic missiles and air defense systems; Chinese 5G; China's demonstrative success in
suppressing COVID and its overall manufacturing power; the declining quality of life for most
Americans; and the collapse of American institutional competence.
Related to this, we can't separate these dynamics from the political economy of the states
in question. China, in particular, is showing that an interventionist state, with high levels
of public ownership, is essential to qualitative power, human security, and economic and
social development.
Capitalism might enrich a few, but it is the primary cause of America's relative and
absolute decline.
US and allied military analysts have been talking over the last year or so of the need to
enter a single focus and total "wartime" posture throughout our societies, with all financial
and industrial output directed to the "war". This has influenced the information/ propaganda
efforts, but also the uptick in military manoeuvres around Taiwan and renewed NATO pressure
directed at Russia (including the recent provocative B52 flights). Don't think Russia/China
can be tricked into over-reacting, but some kind of loss-of-life military confrontation may
be what the rules-based side is looking for as the population at large will probably not
accept a "wartime sacrifice" regimen without such.
Whilst Russia and China are creating a truly new, unique and creative alliance and a
market of everything, in Australia the "authorities" are sicking their police dogs on poor
grannies sitting on park benches. This image of five brainless armed state goons in a show of
force over two quiet little grannies really puts things into perspective. It must be that New
World Order that Soros and puppets always talked about.
Psssst, learning Russian is easier than Chinese and we already know a few Russian words,
such as novichok.
The post scriptum stopped the clock for me. Has our host slipped into our drink there a
profound prophecy, disguised as jesting?
Many agree something big will happen (break?) soon, possibly with the elections. The other
thing is the Americans' ability to change course, drop all baggage, and run off in a new,
even the opposite direction with unfettered enthusiasm (and ferocity). No people has a
greater capacity for almost instant renewal, once it chooses to.
I also notice that the spoof takes good aim at The Donald's peculiarities, though in a
fair and human way. The proverbial Russian warmth, or a humorous invitation?
Meanwhile, I enjoy my newfound optimism in these dark times. Thanks b!
Thanks b and on Anatol Lieven in the Prospect story (fairy story?)...
Russia after the Cold War was a shambles and today it remains a weak economy with a limited
role on the world stage, concerned mainly with retaining some of its traditional areas of
influence. China is a vastly more formidable competitor. If the US (and the UK, if as usual
we tag along) approach the relationship with Beijing with anything like the combination of
arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which
western elites managed the period after the Cold War, then we risk losing the
competition and endangering the world. [my emphasis]
Lieven simply does not see it. Has it ever occurred to Lieven that colonialism just might
be rejected by both Russia and China and that there might be no competition? Does Lieven
watch too much football?
What is it that endangers the world in Lieven's petite cortex? This verbose Lieven
tosh is littered with fancy sentences trawled from here and there but always presented to us
from a narrow dimensional mind with limited analysis and seemingly zero interrogation.
again:- "then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world"...
So Lieven thinks the current behaviour of the US hegemon and its collaborator the UK is
innocuous? These were the two nations that blithely squandered the "peace dividend" from the
end of cold war as he describes and have led us to this time of perpetual war. A perpetual
war that he does not mention, does not allude to, does not treat as an important driver
behind the current global mistrust and disengagement from the USUK drive for global
dominance.
Lieven is putting lipstick on his pig and screaming about losing the competition to the
imagined wolf outside his prison.
It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over
the world.
I agree. The contest between the Empire and the upstarts is not over by a long shot. What the West HAS lost is the "inevitability" argument. But for the upstarts to actually
prevail in their "multi-lateral" vision, they have to actually entice countries to join them
despite threats and intimidation from the Empire.
_________________________________
Passer by @Sep22 20:15 #14
Right now the US in a full blown Cold War with Russia with ever increasing attacks.
Yes. We still see the narratives like of Trump as Putin-lover despite the debunking of
Russiagate and the clear evidence of Cold War tensions. The incessant propaganda reeks of
desperation.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Some seem to think that the Empire is cornered.
Aha! We've got you now, you scoundrels!
LOL.
The Empire's power-elite KNOW that Russia, China, and allies of Russia-China don't want to
be subject to their "rules-based order". The Empire is actively working to undermine,
subvert, and divide the countries that oppose it. While also securing their own
territories/population via intimidation and propaganda.
On rules based disorder and the capitulation of Merkel and her BND lapdogs to the 'hate
Russia' fulminations of the UKUSA morons. I see that the German Parliament has NOT TAKEN its
red pills these days and is reluctant to swallow the BS. It would be satisfying to see the
collective wisdom of the Parliament to exceed that of the BND. But then that is a low bar.
"For our part, we more than once described a balanced and mutually acceptable framework
for future agreements in this sphere during our contacts with the American negotiators. Aware
of the difficulties on the path forward in light of how widely different our approaches are,
we proposed extending the New START as it was originally signed.
"We do not want any unilateral advantages, but we will not make any unilateral concessions
either. A deal may be possible if the United States is ready to coordinate a new document on
the basis of the balance of interests, parity and without expecting Russia to make unilateral
concessions. But this will take time. We can have time to do this if the treaty is
extended."
As predicted, the Outlaw US Empire makes an offer it knows will be refused so it can then
blame Russia for being an unreliable negotiating partner--a trick we've all seen before.
I agree. The contest between the Empire and the upstarts is not over by a long shot.
What the West HAS lost is the "inevitability" argument. But for the upstarts to actually
prevail in their "multi-lateral" vision, they have to actually entice countries to join them
despite threats and intimidation from the Empire.
Yes, the big question remaining is to predict what will happen and when. This is what the
real deal is. And I'm sure they are working on that in the Intel agencies. It can certainly be predicted that the US and the EU will be significantly weaker in 2030
that today. Will this be enough is the question.
We now have some new information about US long term health as published by CBO. Very
interesting numbers.
They predict lower population growth and lower GDP growth for the US than previously
estimated, as well as higher debt rates. US federal debt is to reach 195 % of GDP by 2050 under best case scenario.
Analysts also seem to agree that the Covid 19 crisis further weakened the US vis a vis
China, as the Chinese economy significantly outperformed almost everyone else this year, more
than expected before the crisis.
I will also mention two important recent numbers. This year:
1. China, for the first time, became the biggest trading partner for the EU, beating the
US.
2. China's retail market overtook the one of the US.
Posted by: vk | Sep 22 2020 19:05 utc | 4 -- "....Eurasia is where most of human civilization
lives, it's the "World Island" - the world island not in the military sense, but in the
economic sense. Every path to human prosperity passes through Eurasia - that's why the USA
can't "let it alone" in the first place, while the reverse is not true, that is, Eurasia can
give to the luxury of letting the Americas alone."
Excellent observation, VK.
Even if the World Island (thanks for your formulation) trades with itself, within itself,
there is sufficient mass to last a century, during which the arrogantly exceptional West
might just wake up from their Century of Humiliation.
Meanwhile, inertia alone will ensure that the West forgets that their vaunted
"civilisation" was fed, watered, enriched by the Silk Route that came from the East -- from
the Middle Kingdom (China) and from the Middle East (which is "middle", as you pointed out
above, because all wealth passes through that region).
Yes there are rules which are observed more by their breach than their observance: The Geneva
Conventions. Just ask Julian Assange.
I find it incredible that the Anglo-Zionist captive nations can sign, ratify, incorporate
into domestic law and then sign the additional protocol, making themselves high contracting
parties, which requires them to report all and any breaches to Geneva, then ignore all the
above commitments. One of these commitments includes educating their citizens on the basic
provisions of the conventions. Again they haven't bothered, that could expose their hypocrisy
to the public.
Even the bandit statelet signed but I am yet to see just one example of its application in
the seventy plus years of its barbaric and bloodthirsty occupation of Palestine.
Interestingly, the conventions prohibit the occupied from signing away one iota of their
territory to the occupier. So much for what Claude Pictet's Commentary to the Fourth Geneva
Convention calls "alleged annexations." This book is available from the ICRC.
My late father as an army officer prosecuted Japanese war criminals for their atrocities
now the Anglo-Zionists are the pre-eminent war criminals and their leaders loudly proclaim
"our values" as a pathological and propagandistic form of projection. Is it possible they are
unaware of their blatant hypocrisy ?
It seems the New World Order has some familiar and unsurprising antecedents:
Anatol Lieven comes from an educated and cultured family in Britain's upper middle class
layer. His older siblings - he is the youngest of five children - include a High Court judge
(Dame Natalie Lieven), a Cambridge University professor / historian (Dominic Lieven) and a
psychologist / linguistics researcher (Elena Lieven). They haven't done badly for a family from the old Baltic German
aristocratic elite that used to serve the Russian empire as administrators for the
Livonia governorate.
The British Lievens might see themselves as gatekeepers and interpreters of what the
ruling classes desire (or appear to desire) and communicate that down to us. Hence their
positions in intellectual and academic occupations - no engineers, technicians or academics
in the physical or biological sciences among their number.
Anatol Lieven is right though about "competition", in the sense I believe he is using it:
it is "competition" for supposed global leadership and influence as only the British and
Americans understand it. Life as British and American elites understand it is the annual
football competition writ large; there can only be one winner and the worst position to be in
is second place and every other place below it. Never mind that what Russia and China have in
mind is a vision of the world with multiple and overlapping leadership roles dispersed among
nations according to various criteria: this ideal is simply too much for the Anglosphere
elites to understand, let alone digest and accept.
Still, I wonder why Anatol Lieven is teaching in a university in Qatar of all places.
Family influence and reputation must only go so far.
if you aren't at least a little prepared for a
disruption in critical supplies, and choose instead to waste time commenting on online
forums, it won't matter how up to date you are on "rules based international order" vs.
"international law". at that point the reality will be something like this: if you aren't
holding it, you don't have it, and if you can't defend it, you won't be keeping it for long.
Got that absolutely right.
There is no "international law" and no "international order." There is only relative
power. And when those powers clash, as seems inevitable, the world is in for a major nuclear
war, and probably preceded by several more regional wars. Meanwhile, the US internally is
collapsing into economic disaster, social unrest, political and social oppression,
infrastructure failure, and medical disasters. We'll probably be in martial law sometime
between November 3 and January 21 if not beyond that period, just for starters.
This month is National Preparedness Month. I recommend watching the following videos from
well-known "preppers" who have been warning about this stuff for years.
And this one from The Urban Prepper, an IT guy who is exceptionally well organized and
logical in his videos. I recommend subscribing to his channel. He avoids most of the
excessive "doom and gloom" hype that afflicts a lot of prepper channels and is oriented more
about urban survival than "backwoods bushcraft" since most people live in cities. Prepping 101: Prepping
Architecture Diagram for Gear Organization
And if you don't watch anything else, watch this one from Canadian Prepper - he's
absolutely right in this one and it specifically applies to the barflies here: What is Really Going
On? Its WORSE Than You Think
Meanwhile, inertia alone will ensure that the West forgets that their vaunted "civilisation"
was fed, watered, enriched by the Silk Route that came from the East -- from the Middle
Kingdom (China) and from the Middle East (which is "middle", as you pointed out above,
because all wealth passes through that region).
Posted by: kiwiklown | Sep 22 2020 23:41 utc | 39
Oh, and this one from Canadian Prepper in which he muses about whether and why we actually
*want* the SHTF situation to occur. This one would resonate with a lot of the commentary here
about the social malaise and the psychological reasons for it. Maybe nothing really new for
some, but definitely relevant.
Still, I wonder why Anatol Lieven is teaching in a university in Qatar of all places.
Family influence and reputation must only go so far.
Thank you that backgrounder explains a lot. Perhaps like Englanders before him he finds
Qatar, safe and rewarding PLUS mounds of finest hashish and titillating company. From my
understanding it is a grotesque abuser of human rights and everyone has a price.
America's "Rules-Based International Order" is a Goebbelsian euphemism for a Lies-Based
Imperial Order, led by the USA and its war criminal allies (aka the self-styled Free World).
The true nature of this America-led order is exposed by the USA's war of aggression
against Iraq (which violated international law and had no United Nations sanction) and its
decades-long War on Terrorism, which have murdered hundreds of thousands of people and
maimed, immiserated, or refugeed millions of more people. These crimes against humanity have
been justified by Orwellian American lies about "Weapons of Mass Destruction," "fighting
terrorism," or the curious events of Sept. 11th.
This America "Rules-Based" order is one drenched in the blood of millions of people--even
as it sanctimoniously disguises itself behind endless propaganda about defending liberal
democracy or the rule of law.
Truly, America and its allies can take their malignant Rules-Based Disorder back to Hell,
where they all belong.
"Thus your "side note" has no "relevance" whatsoever."
You sound like some podunk UN official from a podunk country trying to impress a waitress
in a NYC bar. The Empire is very much alive and dangerous. Ask Iran, ask Syria, as the
Palestinians, ask the Russians, ask the Chinese. Ask numerous African nations. Even Pangloss
was not so stupidly naive.
Thank you - YES that is the answer and always has been PLUS there will be no pipeline from
Iran through Afghanistan to Pakistan and on to China. There will be NO overland pipeline or
rail route to sound the death knell to the maritime mafia.
Please vote for trump 2020. no president destroy America from inside like what trump did. The goal is to accelerate American empire destruction and grip in this world.
What better way to put such clown along his circus in white house. he will make a mess of everything and will definitely bring
America down
i hope he win 2020 and America explode into civil war and chaos. With America destroyed internally , they wont have time to invade
Venezuela or Iran
Remember , if Biden win 2020 , American foreign policy will revert into normalcy that means
seeking alliance with EU and 5 eyes in a more meaningful way , aka giving them preferential
treatment on trade..
all that to box in china and russia , reenable TPP , initiate the delayed venezuela overt
invasion other than covert
this is dangerous for the whole world , not that it will save US in the long run but it
will increase real shooting conflict with china and russia.. So focus on trump victory in 2020 , the more controversial the win the better , lets push america into chaos
I appreciate the time and thought that goes into a post like this; all without a popup ad
trying to sell me ANOTHER item I just bought via Amazon, in spite of the fact that I am among
the least likely to want another right now. Voice of reason crying in the wilderness and all
that.
The rule The Capitalist Ogres promote as the heart of Civilization is simply the age-old
Golden Rule. Those with the gold, make the rules.
@ptb quite right.
'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another. ie US and its "allies" is basically asking the rest of the world to finance their (the US
et al)
version of a welfare state.
as US et al can no longer fund their own unaffordable welfare promises made to their own
electorates, they have to call on the rest of the world to do so (China has been effectively
funding the US budget deficit since they entered the WTO.
and the EU (mainly Germany) was doing the same before China's entry into WTO)
China and rest of the worlds foreign central banks stopped growing their foreign exchange
reserves (on net) in 2014
leaving the US in a sort of limbo.
Well, you're sorta correct; it was all those nations including China that bought Outlaw US
Empire debt. China certainly knows better now and for almost a decade now it's purchases--and
those of the rest of the world -- of said debt have declined to the point where a huge crisis
related to the debt pyramid threatens all those aside from the 1% living within the Outlaw US
Empire. The Judo involved was very instructive.
"Trump's UN
address censured" headlines Global Times article that reviews yesterday's UNGA.
Domestic BigLie Media didn't like what it heard from Trump:
"Commenting on the US' performance, many Western media tended to view US as being
'isolated,' and its unilateral efforts 'widely derided....'
"Some US media outlets cannot stand Trump's accusations. A WSJ report said many Democrats
blamed Trump for "isolating the US and diluting American influence in the WHO or other
bodies."
It went on to say Trump's threat of withdrawal is often used as leverage to "influence
partner countries, or get allies to pay more for shared defense."
"Some US media linked Trump's address to his widely blamed effort to re-impose sanctions
on Iran, saying his address came as 'UN members push back against Washington,' AP
reported.
"Wednesday's Washington Post article reported that the Trump administration walked on a
'lonely path' at the UN where the US attacked WHO, and embarked on the 'widely derided'
effort to snap back Iran sanctions.
"A week before the UN General Assembly, US media NPR predicted that the US 'appeared to be
isolated' at this year's General Assembly, saying that Trump's 'America First' agenda left
him out of sync with America's traditional allies as it has a long record of pulling out of
international agreements, including one meant to tackle the world's climate crisis."
So, Trump's attack on China's environmental record was beyond hypocritical and ought to be
termed psychopathic prevarication. The best comment from the article well describes the
Trumptroll @53:
"'Trump's smears and attacks against China were apparently aimed at campaigning for his
reelection. Only his die-hard fans - those who do not care about truth but support him -
will buy his words ,' Ding Yifan, a researcher at the Institute of World Development of
the Development Research Center of the State Council, told the Global Times." [My
Emphasis]
And isn't that really the basic issue--the truth? 75 years of lies by the Outlaw US Empire
to cover it's continuous illegalities and subversion of its own fundamental law while killing
and displacing tens of millions of people. Guardian of the Free World my ass! More like
Guardian of the Gates of Hell.
Yes, I'm biased, but anyone seeking truth and invoking the Rule of Law would find themselves
at odds with the Outlaw US Empire. Today's Global Times Editorial makes
the following key observations:
"Major powers maintaining cooperation, at least not engaging in Cold War-style antagonism,
is the important foundation of world peace. China is committed to maintaining cooperation
among major powers, as well as being flexible in the balance of interests acceptable to all
parties. The problem is the Trump administration is hysterically shaping decoupling and
confrontation between Beijing and Washington, and has been mobilizing more forces to its side
at home and abroad. Those US policymakers are deliberately splitting the world like during
the Cold War.
"The impulse to promote a cold war is the ultimate version of unilateralism, and shows
dangerous and mistaken arrogance that the US is almighty. Everyone knows that the US is
declining in its competitiveness under the rules-based international system the US itself
initiated and created. It wants to build a new system more beneficial to itself, and allow
the US to maintain its advantage without making any effort. This is simply impossible."
My research is pointing me to conclude the First Cold War was contrived so the Outlaw US
Empire could impose privately owned finance and corporations and the political-economies
connected to them upon the world lest the collective forces that were the ones to actually
defeat Fascism gain control of their national governments and shape their political-economies
into the public/collectively owned realm where the benefits would flow to all people instead
of just the already powerful. That's also the intent of imposing a Second Cold War. Some seem
to think there's no ideological divide at play, but as I've ceaselessly explained there most
certainly is, thus the intense demonization of both Russia and China--the Strategic
Competition also is occurring in the realm of Ideas. And the only tools available for the
Outlaw US Empire to use are lies, since the truths involved would encourage any neutral
nation to join the Win-Win vision of China and Russia, not the Zero-sum bankruptcy pushed by
the Parasites controlling the Empire.
@ karlof1 | Sep 23 2020 15:56 utc | 84 and forward with the links and quotes...thanks
I do like the confirmation Pepe quote, thanks
It is sad to understand that much of the US population does not have the mental clarity to
see that Trump is no different than Biden when it comes to fealty to the God of Mammon. Way
too many Americans think that replacing Trump with Biden will make things all better.
The end of the rules based international order/global private finance cannot end soon
enough, IMO
Thanks for your reply! As I discussed with the Missus last night, IMO only the people
regaining control over the federal government can rescue themselves from the multiple
dilemmas they face--the most pressing being the Debt Bomb and control of the monetary and
fiscal systems by private entities as exemplified by the Federal Reserve and Wall Street,
both of which employ the Financial Parasites preying on the nation's body-politic. Undoing
all the past wrongs requires both Congress and the Executive be captured by The People who
can then write the laws to end the wrongs while arresting and prosecuting those responsible
for the last 20+ years of massive fraud. The biggest components would be ending the Federal
Reserve, Nationalizing all the fraudster banks, writing down the vast majority of debt, and
disbanding NATO thus ending the overseas empire. Those are the most fundamental steps
required for the USA to avoid the coming calamity brought about by the Neoliberals. I also
have finally developed my thesis on where, why and how that philosophy was developed and put
into motion.
The first 'Cold War' was entirely contrived. The US knew the Soviet Union was weak and had
no agenda beyond maintaining security and its own reconstruction after WW2. There was no
threat of a Western European invasion, or of the USSR spreading revolution globally. All that
Cold War ideology is a lie. And the same lying is taking place about China today. No
difference.
The key issues for the US were:
1. it needed western european capitalist states to buy US manufactured exports. Those
states had to remain capitalist and subordinate to the US, i.e. to avoid what Acheson called
'neutralism' in world politics.
2. the US wanted gradual decolonization of the British and French empires so that US firms
could access markets and resources in those same territories. but the US feared revolutionary
nationalism in the colonies and the potential loss of market access by the former colonial
powers, which would need resources from the post-colonial world to rebuild after WW2.
The key event which cemented the 'Cold War' in Europe was the division of Germany, which
Carolyn Eisenberg shows was entirely an American decision, in her important book, Drawing the
Line.
The driving force of all this, though, was the economic imperatives of US capitalism. The
US needed to restore and save capitalism in Western Europe and Japan, and the Cold War was
the ideological framework for doing so. The Cold War ideology also allowed the US to frame
its meddling in Korea, Guatemala, Iran, etc.
The late historian Gabriel Kolko wrote the best analyses of these issues. His work is much
better than the New Left 'revisionist' US historians.
I agree with your recap and second your appraisal of Gabriel Kolko. Eisenberg's work
somehow escaped my view but will no longer thanks to your suggestion.
But I see more to it all as the First Cold War had to occur to promote the
financialization of the USA's industrial Capitalism which began within the USA in 1913 and
was abruptly interrupted by the various market crashes, the failure of the international
payments system and subsequent massive deflation and Great Depression. A similar plan to
outsource manufactures to its colonies and commonwealth and financialize its economy was
began in the UK sometime after the end of the US Civil War. At the time in England, the
school of Classical Political-Economists and their political allies (CPE) were attempting to
rid the UK and the rest of Europe of the last vestiges of Feudalism that resided in the
Rentier and Banking Classes, the former being mostly populated by Royalty and its
retainers. Land Rent was the primary source of their income while it was the stated intent of
the CPE to change the tax burden from individuals and businesses to that of Land Rent and
other forms of Unearned Income. That movement came swiftly on the heels of the abolition of
the Slave Trade which was a vast source of Royal income. Recognizing this threat to the basis
of their wellbeing, the Royals needed to turn the tables but in such a manner where their
manipulation was secret because of the vast popularity of the CPE's agenda. Thus began the
movement to discredit the CPE and remove their ideas from discourse and later completely from
the history of political-economy. And there was another problem--German Banks and their
philosophy inspired by Bismarck to be totally supportive of German industry, which provided
the impetus for its own colonial pursuits primarily in Africa.
Within that paragraph is my thesis for the rise of Neoliberalism, much of which Dr. Hudson
documents but hasn't yet gotten to/revealed the root cause of the counter revolution against
the CPE. IMO, that reactionary movement underlies far more, particularly the growing
animosity between the UK and Germany from 1875 to 1914. As Eisenberg's research proves,
there's much more past to be revealed that helps to resolve how we arrived at the times we
now face.
Indeed, as Hudson and Max Keiser ask: Why pay taxes at all since the Fed can create all
the credit required. I've written about the pros and cons of Secession here before which are
quite similar to those existing in 1861. In Washington for example, how to deal with all the
Federal property located there. Just as Ft. Sumter didn't belong to South Carolina, the many
military bases there don't belong to Washington. Trying to seize it as the South Carolinians
attempted in 1861 merely creates the casus belli sought by Trump. Now if you could get the
vast majority of the military stationed in Washington to support your cause, your odds of
resisting would greatly improve.
IMO, trying to regain public control over the Federal government would be much easier.
Thank you brother karlof1, YES, the minotaur indeed but where is Theseus and Ariadne when
we need them? Please don't tell me that Biden and Harris are the 'chosen ones' - that would mock the
legend and prove that the gods are truly crazy :))
It seems to me that a review is required, that we need to turn back the clock to an earlier
analysis whose veracity has only been boosted by subsequent events. So here from
2011: "On November 3, 2011, Alan Minsky interviewed me on KPFK's program, 'Building a
Powerful Movement in the United States' in preparation for an Occupy L.A. teach-in." Here's a
brief excerpt to remind people what this is all about:
"Once people realize that they're being screwed, that's a pre-revolutionary situation.
It's a situation where they can get a lot of sympathy and support, precisely by not doing
what The New York Times and the other papers say they should do: come up with some neat
solutions. They don't have to propose a solution because right now there isn't one –
without changing the system with many, many changes. So many that it's like a new
Constitution. Politics as well as the economy need to be restructured. What's developing now
is how to think about the economic and political problems that are bothering people. It is
not radical to realize that the economy isn't working. That is the first stage to realizing
that a real alternative is needed. We've been under a radical right-wing attack – and
need to respond in kind. The next half-year probably will be spent trying to spell out what
the best structure would be."
It's good to see discussion here of the nefarious role of the American far-right neocon
warmongers in the State Department, intelligence services and military leadership just before
the turn of the new century. What I have never seen clearly explained, however, is the
connection between these very dangerous forces and the equally cynical and reactionary
Israeli politicians and the Mossad, as well as Saudi Arabian officials.
Like many others, I
have been slowly won over to the position that the attacks of 9-11, and especially the
totally unprecedented collapses of the three WTC towers, could only have been caused by the
precisely timed explosion of previously installed demolition materials containing nanothermite. But if one accepts that position the immediately subsequent question is "Who
planned and carried out the attacks?" Many people have claimed it was the Mossad, others that
it was the Mossad in concert with the US neocons etc., -- many of whom were Israeli/US dual
citizens -- but even now, so many years after the horrific events, I can find no coherent
account of how such conspirators, or any others for that matter, might actually have carried
out WTC building demotions. Do any of you know of sources on the matter that have made good
progress on connecting the dots and explaining what precisely happened -- the easier part --
and how exactly it was carried out, by whom, and how they have managed to get away with it
for all this time?
Lieven: If the US (and the UK, if as usual we tag along) approach the relationship with
Beijing with anything like the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality,
bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period after the
Cold War, then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world.[my emphasis]
Uncle Tungsten: Lieven simply does not see it. Has it ever occurred to Lieven that
colonialism just might be rejected by both Russia and China and that there might be no
competition? Does Lieven watch too much football?
What is it that endangers the world in Lieven's petite cortex?
-------
It is clear to me that Tungsten does not understand Lieven because Lieven does not cross all
t's and dot all i's. There can be two reasons for Lieven style: (1) a British style, leaving
some conclusions to the reader, it is not elegant to belabor the obvious (2) Lieven works in
a pro-Western feudal state and that particular piece appeared in a neo-liberal outfit where
it is already a clear outlier toward (what I see as) common sense. Neo-liberals view
themselves as liberals, "tolerating a wide spectrum of opinion", but with clear limits about
the frequency and content for the outliers of their tolerance.
Back to "endangering the world", how "loosing competition to China" can result in huge
mayhem? I guess that Tungsten is a little dense here. The sunset of Anglo-Saxon domination
can seem like the end of the world for the "members" of that domination. But a longer
historical perspective can offer a much darker vision of the future. First, there is a clash
of two blocks, one with superior industrial production, domination of markets of assorted
goods -- both as importer and exporter, etc, the other with still superior military
technology and combative spirit.
Recall (or check) the situation in east Asia ca. 1240 AD. One of the major power was Song
China, after a calamitous defeat roughly 300 years later, diminished Song China succeeded in
developing all kinds of practical and beautiful goods and vibrant commerce while having quite
inept military. The second major power was the Mongols. You can look up the rest.
USA stresses the military types of pressures, and seeing its position slipping too far,
they may resort to a series of gigantic "provocations" -- from confiscation of property by
fiat, like they did to Venezuela, to piracy on open seas, no cargoes can move without their
approval and tribute, from there things can escalate toward nuclear war.
More generally, western decline leads to decrease of wealth affecting the lower classes
first but gradually reaching higher, enmity toward competitors, then hatred, such processes
can have dire consequences.
Importantly, these are speculations, so stopping short of spelling them out is reasonable.
However, give some credit to Lieven for "the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed,
criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period
after the Cold War".
On the rule-based world order. Scattered thoughts.
The article by Lieven was good in one aspect: it at least mentioned the crazy economic
template aka imho 'religion' that lead to a part of this mess. For the rest, hmm. The 'rules based international order' was always pretty much a phoney scaffold, used for
presentation to hide, cover up, legitimised many goings on (after WW2 I mean.)
Like a power-point extolling xyz product, with invented or 'massaged' charts and all.,
with tick boxes for what it positive or followed. (Fairness, Democracy, etc. etc. as
'Natural' 'Organic' etc. Total BS.)
In these kinds of discussions I am always reminded of the 'rights of the child' which in
CH are taught in grade 3-5, with a boiled down text, logo type pix, etc. It is very tough on
teachers, and they often only pretend to push the content. There are many immigrant children
in CH and the natives know that the 'rights' are not respected and not just in 'jungles'
(anarchist / animalistic hot spots) as they say. The kids go nuts - as they still more or
less believe that they 'have a voice' as it called -- the parents follow the kids, lotsa
troubles. OK, these are aspirations - but 'democracy' (purposely used as a calling card
following advice from a well-know ad agency..) is so as well. And presenting aspirations that
can't possibly be achieved in any way, when not a smiley joke about meeting God or flying to
Mars, and is socially important, is not well received.
Anyway, since the invasion of Iraq (totally illegal according to any standards) leading to
the biggest demos in the world ever, a loud indignant cry, which invasion the UN condoned,
ppl (in my experience, in CH, F, It) no longer have a shred of belief in 'international
rules'. Which of course makes them more 'nationalist' in the sense of acting in the
community, close at hand, as the Intl order is a shit-scene.
Colm O'Toole @ 26, Uncle Tungsten @ 32, David G @ 33:
I am also sad to hear of Andre Vltchek's passing. He used to be an occasional contributor
to Off-Guardian.org.
His death is being treated as suspicious by Turkish police authorities. I myself am rather
puzzled by the decision to travel overnight by car from Samsun to Istanbul, given his state
of health (according to the report that Colm O'Toole linked to) and the length of the car
journey (about nine hours) when he could have travelled by plane.
"... Cohen had the courage to take on the entire ruling elites of this country and their messianic supremacist ideology by himself, almost completely alone. ..."
"... He opposed the warmongering nutcases during the Cold War, and he opposed them again when they replaced their rabid hatred of the Soviet Union with an even more rabid hatred of everything Russian. ..."
First, he was a man of immense kindness and humility . Second, he was a man of total
intellectual honesty . I can't say that Cohen and I had the same ideas or the same reading of
history, though in many cases we did, but here is what I found so beautiful in this man: unlike
most of his contemporaries, Cohen was not an ideologue , he did not expect everybody to agree
with him, and he himself did not vet people for ideological purity before offering them his
friendship.
Even though it is impossible to squeeze a man of such immense intellect and honesty into any
one single ideological category, I would say that Stephen Cohen was a REAL liberal , in the
original, and noble, meaning of this word.
I also have to mention Stephen Cohen's immense courage . Yes, I know, Cohen was not deported
to GITMO for his ideas, he was not tortured in a CIA secret prison, and he was not rendered to
some Third Word country to be tortured there on behalf of the USA. Stephen Cohen had a
different kind of courage: the courage to remain true to himself and his ideals even when the
world literally covered him in slanderous accusations, the courage to NOT follow his fellow
liberals when they turned PSEUDO-liberals and betrayed everything true liberalism stands for.
Professor Cohen also completely rejected any forms of tribalism or nationalism, which often
made him the target of vicious hatred and slander, especially from his fellow US Jews (he was
accused of being, what else, a Putin agent).
Cohen had the courage to take on the entire ruling elites of this country and their
messianic supremacist ideology by himself, almost completely alone.
Last, but most certainly not least, Stephen Cohen was a true peacemaker , in the sense of
the words of the Holy Gospel I quoted above. He opposed the warmongering nutcases during the
Cold War, and he opposed them again when they replaced their rabid hatred of the Soviet Union
with an even more rabid hatred of everything Russian.
I won't claim here that I always agreed with Cohen's ideas or his reading of history, and I
am quite sure that he would not agree with much of what I wrote. But one thing Cohen and I
definitely did agree on: the absolute, number one, priority of not allowing a war to happen
between the USA and Russia. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Stephen Cohen dedicated
his entire life towards this goal.
first "met" Steve through
his
1977 essay
"Bolshevism and Stalinism." His cogent, persuasive, revisionist argument that there are always alternatives in
history and politics deeply influenced me. And his seminal biography,
Bukharin
and the Bolshevik Revolution
, challenging prevailing interpretations of Soviet history, was to me, and many, a model of
how biography should be written: engaged and sympathetically critical.
At the time, I was too accepting of conventional wisdom. Steve's work -- and soon, Steve himself -- challenged me to be
critical-minded, to seek alternatives to the status quo, to stay true to my beliefs (even if they weren't popular), and to ask
unpopular questions of even the most powerful. These are values I carry with me to this day as editorial director of
The
Nation
, which Steve introduced me to (and its editor, Victor Navasky) and for which he wrote a column ("Sovieticus") from
1982 to 1987, and many articles and essays beginning in 1979. His last book,
War
with Russia?
was a collection of dispatches (almost all posted at
thenation.com
)
distilled from Steve's weekly radio broadcasts -- beginning in 2014–on
The
John Batchelor Show
.
T
he experiences we shared in Moscow beginning in 1980 are in many ways my life's most meaningful. Steve introduced me
to realms of politics, history, and life I might never have experienced: to Bukharin's widow, the extraordinary Anna
Mikhailovna Larina, matriarch of his second family, and to his eclectic and fascinating circle of friends -- survivors of the
Gulag, (whom he later wrote about in
The
Victims Return
) dissidents, and freethinkers -- both outside and inside officialdom.
From 1985 to 1991, when we lived frequently in Moscow, we shared the intellectual and political excitement, the hopes and the
great achievements of those
perestroika
years.
We later developed a close friendship with Mikhail Gorbachev, a man we both deeply admired as an individual and as a political
leader who used his power so courageously to change his country and the world. Gorbachev also changed our lives in several
ways.
Our marriage coincided with
perestroika
.
In fact, Steve spent the very first day after our wedding, our so-called honeymoon, at the United Nations with Gorbachev and
the news anchor Dan Rather (Steve was consulting for CBS News at the time). Then, on our first anniversary, in 1989, we were
with President Bush (the first) and Gorbachev on Malta when they declared the end of the Cold War. And we think of our
daughter, Nika, now 29 years old, as a
perestroika
baby
because she was conceived in Russia during the Gorbachev years, made her first visit to Moscow in July 1991 and since then has
been back some 40 times. In a moving moment, a year after Raisa Maksimovna died, Gorbachev remarked to Steve that our marriage
and partnership reminded him of his with Raisa because we too seemed inseparable.
Steve has often regretted that many of the Russian friends he made after 1985 did not know about his earlier Moscow life. He
first visited the Soviet Union in 1959. But it was those pre-
perestroika
years,
1975 to 1982, that gave Steve what he once told me was his "real education. Not only in Russian society but in Russian
politics, because I began to understand the connection between trends in society, trends in the dissident movement, and trends
in the nomenklatura." They were "utterly formative years for me."
They also informed his writings, especially his pathbreaking book
Rethinking
the Soviet Experience
, which was published at the very time Gorbachev came to power. "There was a lot of tragedy," Steve
used to say, "but also a lot of humor and warmth when people had little more that personal friendships and ideas to keep them
company." From 1980, when I first traveled to Moscow with Steve, to 1982 when neither of us could get a visa (until 1985 when
Gorbachev became leader), we lived in that Russia, spending many nights in friends' apartments and kitchens drinking into the
night, and listening to uncensored, often pessimistic, thinking about the present and future of Russia.
I later became Steve's collaborator in smuggling
samizdat
manuscripts
out of Russia to the West, and bringing
samizdat
books
back to Russia and distributing them. By the time I joined him, Steve had managed to send dozens of such books to Moscow, and
satisfying friends with a selection ranging from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Varlam Shalamov, George Orwell, and Robert Conquest
to the
Kama
Sutra
and, of course, the
samizdat
version
of Steve's own book on Bukharin. I learned from Steve that one had to keep forbidden documents and manuscripts on one's person
at all times, knowing that the KGB frequently searched apartments and hotel rooms. At a certain point, Steve's shoulder bag
became so heavy that he developed a hernia on his right side. After surgery, he started carrying his bag on his left side, but
developed a second hernia there, as well. He liked to say that the worst the KGB ever did to him was to cause him two hernias!
In fact, it was
samizdat
manuscripts
that first brought us together. In 1978, Steve heard that I had a diplomatic passport, which would have exempted me from a
customs search, and was about to travel to Moscow. (At the time my father was the United States representative to the United
Nations in Geneva.) Through a mutual friend, Steve asked if I would bring out
samizdat
documents
being held for him in Moscow. I would have been happy to do so, but Steve had been misinformed. I didn't have a diplomatic
passport.
S
teve could sometimes seem like a tough guy, but those who won his trust knew he was a person of great generosity,
loyalty, and kindness. He was known in our New York City neighborhood on the Upper West Side as an impresario/organizer and
longtime supporter of basketball tournaments for local, often poor, kids. In the United States and Russia, Steve mentored and
supported young scholars. In the last decade, he set up fellowships for young scholars of Russian history at the several
universities where he'd he studied and taught: Indiana University, Princeton, New York University, and Columbia. He lent his
support to the establishment of Moscow's State Museum of the History of the Gulag -- and to its young director and team.
Life with Steve was never boring. He was supremely independent, the true radical in our family, unfailingly going to the root
of the problem. He spoke his mind. He had a CD with a dozen variations of "My Way" -- from Billy Bragg to Frank Sinatra. And as
The
Chronicle of Higher Education
subtitled its 2017 profile of Steve, he "was the most controversial Russia expert in
America."
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Through all our years together, Steve was my backbone, fortifying me for the battles
Nation
editors
must wage (often with their own writers, sometimes including Steve!), and giving me the personal and political courage to do
the right thing. But never more so than when we entered what might be called the "Russiagate era."
While Steve liked to say it's healthy to rethink, to have more questions than answers, there was a wise consistency to his
political analysis. For example, as is clear from his many articles in
The
Nation
in these last decades, he unwaveringly opposed American Cold War thinking both during the Cold War and since the
end of the Soviet Union. He was consistent in his refusal to sermonize, lecture, or moralize about what Russia should do. He
preferred to listen rather than preach, to analyze rather than demonize.
This stance was no recipe for popularity, which Steve professed to care little about. He was courageous and fearless in
continuing to question the increasingly rigid orthodoxies about the Soviet Union and Russia. But in the last months, such
criticism did take its toll on him. Along with others who sought to avert a new and more dangerous Cold War, Steve despaired
that the public debate so desperately needed had become increasingly impossible in mainstream politics or media. Until his
death he'd been working on a short article about what he saw as the "criminalization of détente." The organization he
established, the American Committee on East-West Accord, tried mightily to argue for a more sane US policy toward Russia.
He fared better than I often did confronting the controversies surrounding him since 2014, in reaction to his views on
Ukraine, Putin, election interference, and more. Positions he took often elicited slurs and scurrilous attacks. How many times
could he be labeled "Putin's puppet"? "Putin's No.1 American apologist"? Endlessly, it seemed. But Steve chose not to respond
directly to the attacks, believing -- as he told me many times when I urged him to respond -- that they offered no truly substantive
criticism of his arguments, but were merely ad hominem attacks. What he did write about -- he was increasingly concerned about
the fate of a younger generation of scholars -- was the danger of smearing those who thought differently about US policy toward
Russia, thereby silencing skeptics and contributing to the absence of a needed debate in our politics, media, and academy.
M
ikhail Gorbachev often told Steve how deeply influenced he was by his writings, especially his biography of Bukharin.
Steve first met Gorbachev in 1987 at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. It was a reception for America's "progressive
intelligentsia" -- which Steve found funny, because he considered himself a maverick and didn't like labels. But he was there
that day, and within a few minutes a Kremlin aide told Steve that the general secretary wanted to talk to him. Minutes later,
Mikhail Sergeevich approached and asked Steve, assuming the author of Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution must be eminent
and of a "serious" age: "
Deistvitelno
[really] -- you
wrote the book, or was it your father?"
Steve finally achieved that "serious" age Gorbachev spoke of! But his heart, spirit and mind remained youthful till the very
end. Maybe it's because of his love of Jerry Lee Lewis's rock and roll, or New Orleans blues or Kentucky bluegrass, or his
passion for basketball (shared with our daughter Nika and his 16-year-old grandson, Lucas), or his quest for a good anecdote
(his annual anecdote lectures at Princeton and later NYU drew large crowds). Maybe it's because we continued our walks in
nearby Riverside Park for as long as was possible -- walks full of loving and spirited argument and talk. Perhaps it's because,
while Steve was a very serious person, he didn't take himself seriously.
O
n Saturday, Mikhail Gorbachev sent these words about Steve:
Dear Katrina,
Please accept my sincere condolences on Steve's
passing. He was one of the closest people to me in his views and
understanding of the enormous events that occurred in the late 1980s in Russia and changed the world.
Steve was a brilliant historian and a man of
democratic convictions. He loved Russia, the Russian intelligentsia, and
believed in our country's future.
I always considered Steve and you my true
friends. During perestroika and all the subsequent years, I felt your
understanding and unwavering support. I thank you both.
Dear Katrina, I feel deep sympathy for your
grief and I mourn together with you and Nika.
Blessed memory for Steve.
I embrace you,
Mikhail Gorbachev
19.09.20
F
or 40 years, Steve was my partner, companion, co-conspirator, best friend, fellow traveler, mentor, husband (for 32
years), co-author. I will be forever grateful to him for introducing me to
The
Nation
, to Russia, for a life that has been full of shared adventure, friendship and passion, and for our beloved
daughter, Nika.
MOST POPULAR
1
Katrina vanden Heuvel
TWITTER
Katrina
vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of
The
Nation
, America's leading source of progressive politics and culture. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to
2019.
Herbert Weiner
says:
September 22, 2020 at 11:53 pm
My condolences for the passing of Stephen who fought the post Cold War policies against Russia with a balanced analysis--so
contradictory to the intellectuals who gloat in our victory and are unrealistic to the "threat" posed by Russia which desperately
needs peace and friendship with the West and, especially, us.
He has shown that you can criticism and condemn Stalinism
while also condemning our anti-Soviet policies. He walked that tightrope which I applaud. May his memory be a blessing.
Erwin Borda
says:
September 22, 2020 at 10:44 pm
Dear Katrina, at this time of America's political confusion, pain and intellectual despair, the lost of Steve is really big.
He has been a source of inspiration to many, and the true defender of Russia in the middle of political adversity. Steve being an
intellectual giant always exposed his ideas in a humble and honest way. What a lost for America and for the world!
Rest in Peace Steve! And for you Katrina and Nika my most sincere condolences!
God Bless you all!
Valera Bochkarev
says:
September 22, 2020 at 8:56 am
Boots, Applebaums, Kristols and Joffes of this world will come and go as specks of dirt clogging up our civilization while never
measuring up to courageous moral and intellectual giants like Professor Cohen. His intellect, insight and humility will always be
a shining beacon for those that have high hopes for humanity. Rest in peace, Steve Cohen. You've led a righteous and honorable
life, Sir.
Pierre Guerlain
says:
September 22, 2020 at 2:43 am
I started reading Steve's articles in connection with the conspiracy theory that Russiagate is and then I watched many videos of
him in interviews. I came to admire such a courageous man who was slandered by people who knew nothing, nothing about Russia, the
country Steve knew so well but also nothing about geopolitics, international relations and the tricks of intel services. Always
competent and with a gift for clear exposition, Steve warned about what is one of the gravest dangers: war with Russia. I too
admired Gorbachev and saw how he was hoodwinked by people who unknowingly prepared Putin's rise. A great courageous thinker is
gone and we miss him.
Ann Wright
says:
September 21, 2020 at 7:53 pm
I admired Steve's perspective from 1992 when I was in the second group that wasIn the US Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and two
years later with the Us Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan for two years from 1994-1996. I've been back to Russia twice in the past
three years and
I agree totally with His view of the stupidity of another Cold War!!!
John Stewart
says:
September 21, 2020 at 5:12 pm
Katrina, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I took two courses with Professor Cohen at Princeton in 1973 and 1974, and
he was without question the best lecturer I had in seven years of higher education. He became my intellectual mentor, although I
was too shy to ever really talk with him. I graduated in Politics and Russian Studies in 1977, and he was an inspiration. I am
especially saddened by his death because I have been thinking of picking up Russian studies soon when I retire and I wanted his
advice on where I should do a Masters degree, with whom, and what topics needed someone to pick up. He was a great man, and a
voice of sense about Russia. He will be greatly missed.
John Connolly
says:
September 21, 2020 at 3:10 pm
Dear Katrina: Thank You for this personal sharing of Your life with Stephen Cohen; and sincere condolences to You, Nika and
Lucas.
I really appreciate Your clarity and candor about the unique position Steve occupied in the academic, intellectual and political
firmament ... never completely clear to me until Your explication. Steve regularly engaged and sometimes enraged me with some of
his positions -- some of them seeming to me ill-considered defenses of cloddish Stalinist bureaucrats or malevolent Russian
authoritarians ... but I read everything he wrote in 'The Nation' and anywhere else I came across him. As a longtime Trotskyist/
Socialist I could find plenty to argue about with Brother Cohen, but also found great appreciation for the fact that
almost
no one else was currently thinking and writing about Russia or the Soviet experience with the rigor, insight, depth of experience
and skill that Stephen owned and shared with us all.
It goes without saying he will be missed by You his dearest and closest
ones; but he will be sorely missed too by those of us in Your extended 'Nation' Family, and the Progressive millions he so widely
taught and influenced to 'think different'.
Unfortunately in his brilliant analysis of USA-Russia relations Stephen Cohen never pointed out that the USA policy toward
Russia is dictated by the interests of maintaining global neoliberal empire and the concept of "Full Spectrum Dominance" which was
adopted by the USA neoliberal elite after the collapse of the USSR.
Like British empire the USA neoliberal empire is now overextended, metropolia is in secular stagnation with deterioration
standard of living of the bottom 80% of population, so the USA under Trump became more aggressive and dangerous on the international
arena. Trump administration behaves behaves like a cornered rat on international arena.
Notable quotes:
"... On Friday, 18 September, professor Steve Cohen passed away in New York City and we, the "dissident" community of Americans standing for peace with Russia – and for peace with the world at large – lost a towering intellectual and skillful defender of our cause who enjoyed an audience of millions by his weekly broadcasts on the John Batchelor Show, WABC Radio. ..."
"... from the start of the Information Wars against Russia during the George W. Bush administration following Putin's speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, no voice questioning the official propaganda line in America was tolerated. Steve Cohen, who in the 1990s had been a welcome guest on U.S. national television and a widely cited expert in print media suddenly found himself blacklisted and subjected to the worst of McCarthyite style, ad hominem attacks. ..."
"... the opposition to Steve was led by experts in the Ukrainian and other minority peoples sub-categories of the profession who were militantly opposed not just to him personally but to any purely objective, not to mention sympathetic treatment of Russian leadership in the territorial expanse of Eurasia. ..."
"... Almost no one outside our 'dissident' community is concerned about the possibility of Armageddon in say two years' time due to miscalculations and bad luck in our pursuing economic, informational and military confrontation with Russia and China. ..."
"... My point in this discussion is that in the last decade of his life Stephen Cohen became one of the nation's most fearless and persistent defenders of the right to Free Speech. ..."
"... It was forced upon him by The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major media who pilloried him or blacklisted him over his unorthodox, unsanctioned, nonconformist views on the "Putin regime." It was forced upon him by university colleagues who sought to deny his right to establish graduate school fellowships in Russian affairs bearing his name and that of his mentor at Indiana University, Professor Tucker. ..."
"... In the face of vicious personal attacks from these McCarthyite forces, in the face of hate mail and even threats to his life, Steve decided to set up The American Committee and to recruit to its governing board famous, patriotic Americans and the descendants of the most revered families in the country. In this he succeeded, and it is to his credit that a moral counter force to the stampeding bulls of repression was erected and has survived to this day. ..."
On Friday, 18 September, professor Steve Cohen passed away in New York City and we, the
"dissident" community of Americans standing for peace with Russia – and for peace with
the world at large – lost a towering intellectual and skillful defender of our cause who
enjoyed an audience of millions by his weekly broadcasts on the John Batchelor Show, WABC
Radio.
A year ago, I reviewed his latest book, War With Russia? which drew upon the
material of those programs and took this scholar turned journalist into a new and highly
accessible genre of oral readings in print. The narrative style may have been more relaxed,
with simplified syntax, but the reasoning remained razor sharp. I urge those who are today
paying tribute to Steve, to buy and read the book, which is his best legacy.
From start to finish, Stephen F. Cohen was among America's best historians of his
generation, putting aside the specific subject matter that he treated: Nikolai Bukharin, his
dissertation topic and the material of his first and best known book; or, to put it more
broadly, the history of Russia (USSR) in the 20 th century. He was one of the very
rare cases of an historian deeply attentive to historiography, to causality and to logic. I
understood this when I read a book of his from the mid-1980s in which he explained why Russian
(Soviet) history was no longer attracting young students of quality: because there were no
unanswered questions, because we smugly assumed that we knew about that country all that there
was to know. That was when our expert community told us with one voice that the USSR was
entrapped in totalitarianism without any prospect for the overthrow of its oppressive
regime.
But my recollections of Steve also have a personal dimension going back six years or so when
a casual email correspondence between us flowered into a joint project that became the launch
of the American Committee for East West Accord (ACEWA). This was a revival of a
pro-détente association of academics and business people that existed from the mid-1970s
to the early 1990s, when, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the removal of the
Communist Party from power, the future of Russia in the family of nations we call the
'international community' seemed assured and there appeared to be no further need for such an
association as ACEWA.
I hasten to add that in the original ACEWA Steve and I were two ships that passed in the
night. With his base in Princeton, he was a protégé of the dean of diplomats then
in residence there, George Kennan, who was the leading light on the academic side of the ACEWA.
I was on the business side of the association, which was led by Don Kendall, chairman of
Pepsico and also for much of the 1970s chairman of the US-USSR Trade and Economic Council of
which I was also a member. I published pro-détente articles in their newsletter and
published a lengthy piece on cooperation with the Soviet Union in agricultural and food
processing domains, my specialty at that time, in their collection of essays by leaders in the
U.S. business community entitled Common Sense in U.S.-Soviet Trade .
The academic contingent had, as one might assume, a 'progressive' coloration, while the
business contingent had a Nixon Republican coloration. Indeed, in the mid-1980s these two sides
split in their approach to the growing peace movement in the U.S. that was fed by opposition in
the 'thinking community' on university campuses to Ronald Reagan's Star Wars agenda. Kendall
shut the door at ACEWA to rabble rousing and the association did not rise to the occasion, so
that its disbanding in the early '90s went unnoticed.
In the re-incorporated American Committee, I helped out by assuming the formal obligations
of Treasurer and Secretary, and also became the group's European Coordinator from my base in
Brussels. At this point my communications with Steve were almost daily and emotionally quite
intense. This was a time when America's expert community on Russian affairs once again felt
certain that it knew everything there was to know about the country, and most particularly
about the nefarious "Putin regime." But whereas in the 1970s and 1980s, polite debate about the
USSR/Russia was entirely possible both behind closed doors and in public space, from the
start of the Information Wars against Russia during the George W. Bush administration following
Putin's speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, no voice questioning the
official propaganda line in America was tolerated. Steve Cohen, who in the 1990s had been a
welcome guest on U.S. national television and a widely cited expert in print media suddenly
found himself blacklisted and subjected to the worst of McCarthyite style, ad hominem
attacks.
From my correspondence and several meetings with Steve at this time both in his New York
apartment and here in Brussels, when he and Katrina van der Heuvel came to participate in a
Round Table dedicated to relations with Russia at the Brussels Press Club that I arranged, I
knew that Steve was deeply hurt by these vitriolic attacks. He was at the time waging a
difficult campaign to establish a fellowship in support of graduate studies in Russian affairs.
It was touch and go, because of vicious opposition from some stalwarts of the profession to any
fellowship that bore Steve's name. Allow me to put the 'i' on this dispute: the opposition
to Steve was led by experts in the Ukrainian and other minority peoples sub-categories of the
profession who were militantly opposed not just to him personally but to any purely objective,
not to mention sympathetic treatment of Russian leadership in the territorial expanse of
Eurasia. In the end, Steve and Katrina prevailed. The fellowships exist and, hopefully,
will provide sustenance to future studies when American attitudes towards Russia become less
politicized.
At all times and on all occasions, Steve Cohen was a voice of reason above all. The problem
of our age is that we are now not only living in a post-factual world, but in a post-logic
world. The public reads day after day the most outrageous and illogical assertions about
alleged Russian misdeeds posted by our most respected mainstream media including The New
York Times and The Washington Post . Almost no one dares to raise a hand and
suggest that this reporting is propaganda and that the public is being brainwashed. Steve did
exactly that in War With Russia? in a brilliant and restrained text.
Regrettably today we have no peace movement to speak of. Youth and our 'progressive' elites
are totally concerned over the fate of humanity in 30 or 40 years' time as a consequence of
Global Warming and rising seas. That is the essence of the Green Movement. Almost no one
outside our 'dissident' community is concerned about the possibility of Armageddon in say two
years' time due to miscalculations and bad luck in our pursuing economic, informational and
military confrontation with Russia and China.
I fear it will take only some force majeure development such as we had in 1962 during the
Cuban Missile Crisis to awaken the broad public to the risks to our very survival that we are
incurring by ignoring the issues that Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Princeton and New
York University was bringing to the airwaves week after week on his radio program.
Postscript
In terms of action, the new ACEWA was even less effective than its predecessor, which had
avoided linking up with the peace movement of the 1980s and sought to exert influence on policy
through armchair talks with Senators and other statesmen in Washington behind closed doors of
(essentially) men's clubs.
However, the importance of the new ACEWA, and the national importance of Stephen Cohen lay
elsewhere.
This question of appraising Stephen Cohen's national importance is all the more timely given
that on the day of his death, 18 September, the nation also lost Supreme Justice Ruth Ginsburg,
about whose national importance no Americans, whether her fans or her opponents, had any
doubt.
My point in this discussion is that in the last decade of his life Stephen Cohen became
one of the nation's most fearless and persistent defenders of the right to Free Speech. It
was not a role that he sought. It was thrust upon him by the expert community of international
affairs, including the Council on Foreign Relations, from which he reluctantly resigned over
this matter.
It was forced upon him by The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major media
who pilloried him or blacklisted him over his unorthodox, unsanctioned, nonconformist views on
the "Putin regime." It was forced upon him by university colleagues who sought to deny his
right to establish graduate school fellowships in Russian affairs bearing his name and that of
his mentor at Indiana University, Professor Tucker.
In the face of vicious personal attacks from these McCarthyite forces, in the face of
hate mail and even threats to his life, Steve decided to set up The American Committee and to
recruit to its governing board famous, patriotic Americans and the descendants of the most
revered families in the country. In this he succeeded, and it is to his credit that a moral
counter force to the stampeding bulls of repression was erected and has survived to this
day.
[If you found value in this article, you should be interested to read my latest collection
of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, published in
November 2019 and available in e-book, paperback and hardbound formats from amazon, barnes
& noble, bol.com, fnac, Waterstones and other online retailers. Use the "View Inside" tab
on the book's webpages to browse.]
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God
"... In a world that is increasingly confusing and awash with propaganda, Cohen's death is a
blow to humanity's desperate quest for clarity and understanding. ..."
Stephen F Cohen, the renowned American scholar on Russia and leading authority on US-Russian
relations, has died of lung cancer at the
age of 81.
As one of the precious few western voices of sanity on the subject
of Russia while everyone else has been frantically flushing their brains down the toilet,
this is a real loss. I myself have cited Cohen's expert analysis many times in my own work, and
his perspective has played a formative role in my understanding of what's really going on with
the monolithic cross-partisan manufacturing of consent for increased western aggressions
against Moscow.
In a world that is increasingly confusing and awash with propaganda, Cohen's death is a blow
to humanity's desperate quest for clarity and understanding.
I don't know how long Cohen had cancer. I don't know how long he was aware that he might not
have much time left on this earth. What I do know is he spent much of his energy in his final
years urgently trying to warn the world about the rapidly escalating danger of nuclear war,
which in our strange new reality he saw as in many ways completely unprecedented.
The last of the many books Cohen authored was 2019's
War
with Russia? , detailing his ideas on how the complex multi-front nature of the post-2016
cold
war escalations against Moscow combines with Russiagate and other factors to make it in
some ways more dangerous even than the most dangerous point of the previous cold war.
"You know it's easy to joke about this, except that we're at maybe the most dangerous moment
in US-Russian relations in my lifetime, and maybe ever," Cohen told The Young Turks in 2017. "And the reason is that we're
in a new cold war, by whatever name. We have three cold war fronts that are fraught with the
possibility of hot war, in the Baltic region where NATO is carrying out an unprecedented
military buildup on Russia's border, in Ukraine where there is a civil and proxy war between
Russia and the west, and of course in Syria, where Russian aircraft and American warplanes are
flying in the same territory. Anything could happen."
Cohen repeatedly points to the most likely cause of a future nuclear war: not one that is
planned but one which erupts in tense, complex situations where "anything could happen" in the
chaos and confusion as a result of misfire, miscommunication or technical malfunction, as
nearly
happened many times during the last cold war.
"I think this is the most dangerous moment in American-Russian relations, at least since the
Cuban missile crisis," Cohen told Democracy
Now in 2017. "And arguably, it's more dangerous, because it's more complex. Therefore, we
-- and then, meanwhile, we have in Washington these -- and, in my judgment, factless
accusations that Trump has somehow been compromised by the Kremlin. So, at this worst moment in
American-Russian relations, we have an American president who's being politically crippled by
the worst imaginable -- it's unprecedented. Let's stop and think. No American president has
ever been accused, essentially, of treason. This is what we're talking about here, or that his
associates have committed treason."
"Imagine, for example, John Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis," Cohen added. "Imagine
if Kennedy had been accused of being a secret Soviet Kremlin agent. He would have been
crippled. And the only way he could have proved he wasn't was to have launched a war against
the Soviet Union. And at that time, the option was nuclear war."
"A recurring theme of my recently published book War with Russia? is that the new Cold War
is more dangerous, more fraught with hot war, than the one we survived," Cohen wrote
last year . "Histories of the 40-year US-Soviet Cold War tell us that both sides came to
understand their mutual responsibility for the conflict, a recognition that created political
space for the constant peace-keeping negotiations, including nuclear arms control agreements,
often known as détente. But as I also chronicle in the book, today's American Cold
Warriors blame only Russia, specifically 'Putin's Russia,' leaving no room or incentive for
rethinking any US policy toward post-Soviet Russia since 1991."
"Finally, there continues to be no effective, organized American opposition to the new Cold
War," Cohen added. "This too is a major theme of my book and another reason why this Cold War
is more dangerous than was its predecessor. In the 1970s and 1980s, advocates of détente
were well-organized, well-funded, and well-represented, from grassroots politics and
universities to think tanks, mainstream media, Congress, the State Department, and even the
White House. Today there is no such opposition anywhere."
"A major factor is, of course, 'Russiagate'," Cohen continued. "As evidenced in the sources
I cite above, much of the extreme American Cold War advocacy we witness today is a mindless
response to President Trump's pledge to find ways to 'cooperate with Russia' and to the
still-unproven allegations generated by it. Certainly, the Democratic Party is not an
opposition party in regard to the new Cold War."
"Détente with Russia has always been a fiercely opposed, crisis-ridden policy
pursuit, but one manifestly in the interests of the United States and the world," Cohen
wrote in another
essay last year. "No American president can achieve it without substantial bipartisan
support at home, which Trump manifestly lacks. What kind of catastrophe will it take -- in
Ukraine, the Baltic region, Syria, or somewhere on Russia's electric grid -- to shock US
Democrats and others out of what has been called, not unreasonably, their Trump Derangement
Syndrome, particularly in the realm of American national security? Meanwhile, the Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists has recently reset its Doomsday Clock to two minutes before
midnight."
And now Stephen Cohen is dead, and that clock is inching ever closer to midnight. The
Russiagate psyop that he predicted would pressure Trump to advance dangerous cold war
escalations with no opposition from the supposed opposition party
has indeed done exactly that with nary a peep of criticism from either partisan faction of
the political/media class. Cohen has for years been correctly
predicting this chilling scenario which now threatens the life of every organism on earth,
even while his own life was nearing its end.
And now the complex cold war escalations he kept urgently warning us about have become even
more complex with the
addition of nuclear-armed China to the multiple fronts the US-centralized empire has been
plate-spinning its brinkmanship upon, and it is clear from the ramping
up of anti-China propaganda since last year that we are being prepped for those aggressions
to continue to increase.
We should heed the dire warnings that Cohen spent his last breaths issuing. We should demand
a walk-back of these insane imperialist aggressions which benefit nobody and call for
détente with Russia and China. We should begin creating an opposition to this
world-threatening flirtation with armageddon before it is too late. Every life on this planet
may well depend on our doing so.
Stephen Cohen is dead, and we are marching toward the death of everything. God help us
all.
People are just now starting to realize that possible alternate path. But the Demoncrats
in the USA must first be put down, politically euthanized, along with their neocon
never-Trump Republican partners. And that cleaning up is on the way. Trump's second term will
be the advancement of the USA-Russia initiative that is so long overdue.
PerilouseTimes , 48 minutes ago
Putin won't let western billionaires rape Russia's enormous natural resources and on top
of that Putin is against child molesters, that is what this Russia bashing is all about.
awesomepic4u , 1 hour ago
Sad to hear this.
What a good man. It is a real shame that we dont have others to stand up to this crazy pr
that is going on right now. Making peace with the world at this point is important. We dont need or
want another war and i am sure that both Europe and Russia dont want it on their turf but it
seems we keep sticking our finger in their eye. If there is another war it will be the last
war. As Einstein said, after the 3rd World War we will be using sticks and stones to fight
it.
Clint Liquor , 44 minutes ago
Cohen truly was an island of reason in a sea of insanity. Ironic that those panicked over
climate change are unconcerned about the increasing threat of Nuclear War.
thunderchief , 41 minutes ago
One of the very few level headed people on Russia.
All thats left are anti Russia-phobic nut jobs.
Send in the clowns.
Stephen Cohen isn't around to call them what they are anymore.
Eastern Whale , 55 minutes ago
cooperate with Russia
Has the US ever cooperated with anyone?
fucking truth , 3 minutes ago
That is the crux. All or nothing.
Mustafa Kemal , 49 minutes ago
Ive read several of his books. They are essential, imo, if you want to understand modern
russian history.
Normal , 1 hour ago
The bankers created the new CCP cold war.
evoila , 19 minutes ago
Max Boot is an effing idiot. Tucker wiped him clean too. It was an insult to Stephen to
even put them on the same panel.
RIP Stephen.
Gary Sick is the equivalent to Stephen, except for Iran. He too is of an era of competence
which is and will be missed as their voices are drowned out by neocon warmongers
thebigunit , 17 minutes ago
I heard Stephen Cohen a number of time in John Bachelor's podcasts.
He seemed very lucid and made a lot of sense.
He made it very clear that he thought the Democrat's "Trump - Russia collusion schtick"
was a bunch of crap.
He didn't sound like a leftie, but I'm sure he never told me the stuff he discussed with
his wife who was editor of the left wing "The Nation" magazine.
Boogity , 9 minutes ago
Cohen was a traditional old school anti-war Liberal. They're essentially extinct now with
the exception of a few such as Tulsi Gabbard and Dennis Kucinich who have both been
ostracized from the Democrat Party and the political system.
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T
he US media's three-year obsession with the mostly fictitious allegations of "Russiagate" has all but obscured, even
deleted, important, potentially historic, developments inside that nation itself, still the world's largest territorial
country. One of the most important is the Putin government's decision to invest $300-to-$400 billion of "rainy day" funds in
the nation's infrastructure, especially in its vast, underdeveloped provinces, and on "national projects" ranging from
education to health care and family services to transportation and other technology. If successfully implemented, Russia would
be substantially transformed and the lives of its people significantly improved.
Not surprisingly, however, the plan has aroused considerable controversy and public debate in Russia's policy elite, primarily
for two reasons. The funds were accumulated largely due to high world prices for Russia's energy exports and the state's
budgetary austerity during the decade after Putin came to power in 2000, and they have been hoarded as a safeguard against
Western economic sanctions and/or a global economic depression. (Russia's economic collapse in the Yeltsin 1990s, perhaps the
worst modern-day depression in peacetime, remains a vivid memory for policy-makers and ordinary citizens alike.)
There is also the nation's long, sometimes traumatic, history of "modernization from above," as it is termed. In the late 19th
century, the czarist regime's program to industrialize the country, "to catch up" with other world powers, had unintended
consequences that led, in the accounts of many historians, to the end of czarism in the 1917 revolution. And Stalin's
"revolution from above" of the 1930s, based on the forced collectivization of the peasantry, which at the time accounted for
more than 80 percent of the population, along with very rapid industrialization, resulted in millions of deaths and economic
distortions that burdened Soviet and post-Soviet Russia for decades.
Nor are Russia's alternative experiences of modernization from below inspiring or at least instructive. In the 1920s, during
the years known as the New Economic Policy, or NEP, the victorious Bolsheviks pursued evolutionary economic development
through a semi-regulated market economy. It had mixed -- and still disputed -- results, and it was brutally abolished by Stalin in
1929. Decades later, Yeltsin's "free-market reforms" were widely blamed for the ruination and widespread misery of the 1990s,
which featured many aspects of actual de-modernization.
With all this "living history" in mind, Putin's plan for such large-scale (and rapid) investment has generated the controversy
in Moscow and resulted in three positions within the policy class. One fully supports the decision on the essentially
Keynesian grounds that it will spur Russia's annual economic growth, which has lagged below the global average for several
years. Another opposes such massive expenditures, arguing that the funds must remain in state hands as a safeguard against the
US-led "sanctions war" (and perhaps worse) against Russia. And, as usual in politics, there is a compromise position that less
should be invested in civilian infrastructure and less quickly.
Running through the discussion is also Russia's long history of thwarted implementation of good intentions. To paraphrase a
prime minister during the 1990s,
Viktor
Chernomyrdin
, "We wanted things to turn out for the best, but they turned out as usual." In particular, it is often asked,
what will be the consequences of putting so much money into the hands of regional and other local officials in provinces where
corruption is endemic? How much will be stolen or otherwise misdirected?
Nonetheless, Putin seems to be resolute. He is also insistent that his ambitious plan to transform Russia requires a long
period of international peace and stability. Here again is plain evidence that those in Washington who insist Putin's primary
goal is "to sow discord, divisions, and instability" in the world, especially in the West, where he hopes to find "modernizing
partnerships," do not care about or understand what is actually unfolding inside Russia -- or Putin's vision of his own
historical role and legacy.
Stephen F. Cohen
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and
Princeton University. A
Nation
contributing
editor, his most recent book,
War
With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate
, is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly
conversations with the host of
The
John Batchelor Show
, now in their seventh year,
are
available at www.thenation.com
.
Published Sept. 18, 2020
Updated Sept.
19, 2020,
9:37
a.m. ET
Stephen F. Cohen, an eminent historian whose books and commentaries on Russia examined the rise and fall of Communism,
Kremlin dictatorships and the emergence of a post-Soviet nation still struggling for identity in the 21st century, died on
Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 81.
His wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, the publisher and part owner of The Nation, said the cause was lung cancer.
From the sprawling conflicts of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and the tyrannies of Stalin to the collapse of the Soviet
Union and Vladimir V. Putin's intrigues to retain power, Professor Cohen chronicled a Russia of sweeping social upheavals
and the passions and poetry of peoples that endured a century of wars, political repression and economic hardships.
A professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University, he was fluent in Russian, visited
Russia frequently and developed contacts among intellectual dissidents and government and Communist Party officials. He
wrote or edited 10 books and many articles for The Nation, The New York Times and other publications, was a CBS-TV
commentator and counted President George Bush and many American and Soviet officials among his sources.
In Moscow he was befriended by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who invited him to the May Day celebration at
Red Square in 1989. There, at the Lenin Mausoleum, Professor Cohen stood with his wife and son one tier below Mr. Gorbachev
and the Soviet leadership to view a three-hour military parade. He later spoke briefly on Russian television to a vast
audience about alternative paths that Russian history could have taken.
Loosely identified with a revisionist historical view of the Soviet Union, Professor Cohen held views that made him a
controversial public intellectual. He believed that early Bolshevism had held great promise, that it had been democratic
and genuinely socialist, and that it had been corrupted only later by civil war, foreign hostility, Stalin's malignancy and
a fatalism in Russian history.
A traditionalist school of thought, by contrast, held that the Soviet experiment had been flawed from the outset, that
Lenin's political vision was totalitarian, and that any attempt to create a society based on his coercive utopianism had
always been likely to lead, logically, to Stalin's state terrorism and to the Soviet Union's eventual collapse.
Professor Cohen was an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Gorbachev, who after coming to power in 1985 undertook ambitious
changes to liberate the nation's 15 republics from state controls that had originally been imposed by Stalin. Mr. Gorbachev
gave up power as the Soviet state imploded at the end of 1991 and moved toward beliefs in democracy and a market economy.
Image
Mr. Cohen first came to international attention in 1973 with his biography of Lenin's protégé Nikolai Bukharin.
"Stephen Cohen's full-scale study of Bukharin is the first major study of this remarkable associate of Lenin,"
Harrison
Salisbury's wrote in a review
in The Times. "As such it constitutes a milestone in Soviet studies, the byproduct both
of increased academic sophistication in the use of Soviet materials and also of the very substantial increase in basic
information which has become available in the 20 years since Stalin's death."
After Lenin's death, Mr. Bukharin became a victim of Stalin's Moscow show trials in 1938; he was accused of plotting
against Stalin and executed. His widow, Anna Mikhailovna Larina, spent 20 years in exile and in prison camps and campaigned
for Mr. Bukharin's rehabilitation, which was endorsed by Mr. Gorbachev in 1988.
Ms. Larina and Professor Cohen became friends. Given access to Bukharin archives, he found and returned to her the last
love letter that Mr. Bukharin wrote her from prison.
In "Rethinking the Soviet Experience" (1985), Professor Cohen offered a new interpretation of the nation's traumatic
history and modern political realities. In his view, Stalin's despotism and Mr. Bukharin's fate were not necessarily
inevitable outgrowths of the party dictatorship founded by Lenin.
Richard Lowenthal, in a review for The Times, called Professor Cohen's interpretation implausible. "While I do not believe
that all the horrors of Stalinism were 'logically inevitable' consequences of the seizure of power by Lenin and his
Bolshevik Party," Mr. Lowenthal wrote, "I do believe that Stalin's victory over Bukharin was inherent in the structure of
the party's system."
As Professor Cohen and other scholars pondered Russia's past, Mr. Gorbachev's rise to power and his efforts toward glasnost
(openness) and perestroika (restructuring) cast the future of the Soviet Union in a new light, potentially reversing 70
years of Cold War dogma.
Cohen succumbed to lung cancer at his home in Manhattan, on Friday, according to his wife
Katrina vanden Heuvel, who is also the part-owner and publisher of The Nation magazine, where
he worked as a contributing editor.
A native of Kentucky, he was a prolific and prominent scholar in his field, serving as a
professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University. As a
frequent visitor to Russia, Cohen became well-connected among leading Soviet dissidents,
politicians and thinkers in the 1980s, even befriending Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev.
Cohen also advised former US President George Bush, senior, in the late 1980s, and assisted
Anna Larina, the widow of Nikolai Bukharin, to rehabilitate her husband's name during the
Soviet era. He had earlier written a biography of the journalist and politician, which argued
that had Bukharin succeeded Vladimir Lenin as Bolshevik leader, rather than Joseph Stalin, the
Soviet Union would have enjoyed greater openness, and perhaps even democracy.
Breaking with many American academics and political commentators, Cohen was highly critical
of Washington's approach to Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He warned of the
dangers of NATO expansion and argued that much of the economic devastation seen in Russia
during the 1990s could be traced to bad-faith policies and advice from the United States.
His principled, and patriotic stand, led to smears from members of the think tank racket and
both liberal and neoconservative interventionists, keen to stoke tensions with Moscow. Cohen
was labelled a Putin apologist. He responded by saying that he saw him as being "in the Russian
tradition of leadership, getting Russia back on its feet."
After the election of Donald Trump, Cohen found himself in the crosshairs of the mainstream
media for challenging the now-debunked Russiagate narrative, which he said was being used to
sabotage bilateral relations and trigger a "new Cold War" with Moscow.
The unsubstantiated claim that Trump's presidential campaign "colluded" with the
Kremlin would likely make a US-Russia detente "impossible" and could even help fuel an
actual war between the two nations, Cohen argued. He lamented that Special Counsel Robert
Mueller's probe into the conspiracy theory, which found no evidence of collusion, would do
little to tone down the fiery rhetoric and anonymously sourced media hysteria concerning Russia
and its alleged influence over the US political system.
The author of numerous books and countless articles, Cohen was a frequent guest on RT, where
he often used his air time to sound the alarm over the dangerous state of US-Russia relations,
lamenting that the hostility was both unnecessary and potentially calamitous.
Has there been another mutiny in Trump's White House, as Obama's former ambassador to Russia
piles on the nonsense about Trump being in Putin's pocket?
Special to Consortium News
C orporate media are binging on leaked Kool Aid not unlike the WMD concoction they offered
18 years ago to "justify" the U.S.-UK war of aggression on Iraq.
Now Michael McFaul, ambassador to Russia under President Obama, has been enlisted by The
Washington Post 's editorial page honcho, Fred Hiatt, to draw on his expertise (read,
incurable Russophobia) to help stick President Donald Trump back into "Putin's pocket." (This
has become increasingly urgent as the canard of "Russiagate" -- including the linchpin claim
that Russia hacked the DNC -- lies gasping for air.)
In an
oped on Thursday McFaul presented a long list of Vladimir Putin's alleged crimes, offering
a more ostensibly sophisticated version of amateur Russian specialist, Rep. Jason Crow's (D-CO)
claim that: "Vladimir Putin wakes up every morning and goes to bed every night trying to figure
out how to destroy American democracy."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry with McFaul meeting Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, on May 7, 2013. (State Department)
McFaul had -- well, let's call it an undistinguished career in Moscow. He arrived with a
huge chip on his shoulder and proceeded to alienate just about all his hosts, save for the
rabidly anti-Putin folks he openly and proudly cultivated. In a sense, McFaul became the
epitome of what Henry Wooton described as the role of ambassador -- "an honest man sent to lie
abroad for the good of his country." What should not be so readily accepted is an ambassador
who comes back home and just can't stop misleading.
Not to doubt McFaul's ulterior motives; one must assume him to be an "honest man" -- however
misguided, in my opinion. He seems to be a disciple of the James Clapper-Curtis LeMay-Joe
McCarthy School of Russian Analysis.
Clapper, a graduate summa cum laude , certainly had the Russians pegged! Clapper was
allowed to stay as Barack Obama's director of national intelligence for three and a half years
after perjuring himself in formal Senate testimony (on NSA's illegal eavesdropping). On May 28,
2017 Clapper told NBC's Chuck
Todd about "the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically
driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique."
As a finale, in full knowledge of Clapper's proclivities regarding Russia, Obama appointed
him to prepare the evidence-impoverished, misnomered "Intelligence Community Assessment"
claiming that Putin did all he could, including hacking the DNC, to help Trump get elected --
the most embarrassing such "intelligence assessment" I have seen in half a century .
Obama and the National Security State
I have asked myself if Obama also had earned some kind of degree from the
Clapper/LeMay/McCarthy School, or whether he simply lacked the courage to challenge the
pitiably self-serving "analysis" of the National Security State. Then I re-read "Obama Misses the Afghan
Exit-Ramp" of June 24, 2010 and was reminded of how deferential Obama was to the generals and
the intelligence gurus, and how unconscionable the generals were -- like their predecessors in
Vietnam -- in lying about always seeing light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
Thankfully, now ten years later, this is all
documented in Craig Whitlock's, "The Afghanistan Papers: At War With the Truth." Corporate
media, who played an essential role in that "war with the truth", have not given Whitlock's
damning story the attention it should command (surprise, surprise!). In any case, it strains
credulity to think that Obama was unaware he was being lied to on Afghanistan.
Some Questions
Clark Gable (l.) with Charles Laughton (r.) in Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935.
Does no one see the irony today in the Democrats' bashing Trump on Afghanistan, with the
full support of the Establishment media? The inevitable defeat there is one of the few
demonstrable disasters not attributable directly to Trump, but you would not know that from the
media. Are the uncorroborated reports of Russian bounties to kill U.S. troops aimed at making
it appear that Trump, unable to stand up to Putin, let the Russians drive the rest of U.S.
troops out of Afghanistan?
Does the current flap bespeak some kind of "Mutiny on the Bounties," so to speak, by a
leaker aping Eric Chiaramella? Recall that the Democrats lionized the CIA official seconded to
Trump's national security council as a "whistleblower" and proceeded to impeach Trump after
Chiaramella leaked information on Trump's telephone call with the president of Ukraine. Far
from being held to account, Chiaramella is probably expecting an influential job if his patron,
Joe Biden, is elected president. Has there been another mutiny in Trump's White House?
And what does one make of the
spectacle of Crow teaming up with Rep. Liz Cheney (R, WY) to restrict Trump's planned
pull-out of troops from Afghanistan, which The Los Angeles Timesreports
has now been blocked until after the election?
Hiatt & McFaul: Caveat Editor
And who published McFaul's oped? Fred Hiatt, Washington Post editorial page editor
for the past 20 years, who has a long record of listening to the whispers of anonymous
intelligence sources and submerging/drowning the subjunctive mood with flat fact. This was the
case with the (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the U.S.-UK attack.
Readers of the Post were sure there were tons of WMD in Iraq. That Hiatt has invited
McFaul on stage should come as no surprise.
To be fair, Hiatt belatedly acknowledged that the Post should have been more
circumspect in its confident claims about the WMD. "If you look at the editorials we write
running up [to the war], we state as flat fact that he [Saddam Hussein] has weapons of mass
destruction," Hiatt said in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review . "If
that's not true, it would have been better not to say it." [CJR, March/April 2004]
At this word of wisdom, Consortium News founder, the late Robert Parry,
offered this comment: "Yes, that is a common principle of journalism, that if something isn't
real, we're not supposed to confidently declare that it is." That Hiatt is still in that job
speaks volumes.
'Uncorroborated, Contradicted, or Even Non-Existent'
It is sad to have to remind folks 18 years later that the "intelligence" on WMD in Iraq was
not "mistaken;" it was fraudulent from the get-go. The culprits were finally exposed but never
held to account.
Announcing on June 5, 2008, the bipartisan conclusions from a five-year study by the Senate
Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller ( D-WV)
said the attack on Iraq was launched "under false pretenses." He described the intelligence
conjured up to "justify" war on Iraq as "uncorroborated, contradicted, or even
non-existent."
Homework
Yogi Berra in 1956. (Wikipedia)
Here's an assignment due on Monday. Read McFaul's
oped carefully. It appears under the title: "Trump would do anything for Putin. No wonder
he's ignoring the Russian bounties: Russia's pattern of hostility matches Trump's pattern of
accommodation."
And to give you a further taste, here is the first paragraph:
"Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have paid Taliban rebels in Afghanistan to
kill U.S. soldiers. Having resulted in at least one American death, and maybe more, these
Russian bounties reportedly produced the desired outcome. While deeply disturbing, this
effort by Putin is not surprising: It follows a clear pattern of ignoring international
norms, rules and laws -- and daring the United States to do anything about it."
Full assignment for Monday: Read carefully through each paragraph of McFaul's text and
select which of his claims you would put into one or more of the three categories adduced by
Sen. Rockefeller 12 years ago about WMD on Iraq. With particular attention to the evidence
behind McFaul's claims, determine which of the claims is (a) "uncorroborated"; which (b)
"contradicted"; and which (c) "non-existent;" or (d) all of the above. For extra credit, find
one that is supported by plausible evidence.
Yogi Berra might be surprised to hear us keep quoting him with "Deja vu, all over again."
Sorry, Yogi, that's what it is; you coined it.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-year career as a CIA analyst, he prepared and
briefed The President's Daily Brief for Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. He is
co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of
Consortium News.
PleaseContributeto Consortium News on its25th Anniversary
Gad, one wonders if it can ever get much lower in the press and the answer is yes, it can
and will go lower, i.e. the mcfaul/hiatt tag team. They are still plumbing for the lows.
The question becomes just how stupid these two are or how stupid do they believe the
readership is to read and believe this garbage.
Voice from Europe , July 6, 2020 at 11:58
By now the Russia did it ! is in effect a joke in Russia. Economically, politically, geo
strategically China and Asia and Africa have become more important and reliable partners of
Russia than the USA. And Europe is also dropping fast on the trustworthy partners
list…..
John , July 5, 2020 at 12:55
Michael McFaul and Fred Hiatt are both long-time members of the Council on Foreign
Relations (CFR), flagship of the globalist “liberal world order”. The CFR and its
many interlocking affiliates, along with their media assets and frontmen in government, have
dominated US policy since WW2. Most of the Fed chairmen and secretaries of State, Treasury,
Defense and CIA have been CFR members, including Jerome Powell and Mark Esper.
The major finance, energy, defense and media corporations are CFR sponsors, and several of
their execs are members. David Rubenstein, billionaire founder of the notorious Carlyle
Group, is the current CFR chairman. Laurence Fink, billionaire chairman of BlackRock, is a
CFR director. See lists at the CFR website.
Anna , July 6, 2020 at 09:38
Michael McFaul and Fred Hiatt are both very active promoters of hate crimes. Neither has
any decency hence decency is allergic to war profiteers and opportunistic liars.
The poor USA; to descend to such a deep moral hole that both Michael McFaul and Fred Hiatt
are still alive and prospering. Shamelessness and presstituting are paid well in the US.
Dems and Reps are already mad.You cannot destroy what does not exist;like Democracy in
these United States.Nor God or Putin could.This has always being a fallacy.This is not a
democracy;same thing with”comunist China or the USSR.Those two were never
socialist.There has never being a real Socialist or Communist country.
Guy , July 4, 2020 at 12:26
“It is sad to have to remind folks 18 years later that the
“intelligence” on WMD in Iraq was not “mistaken;” it was fraudulent
from the get-go. The culprits were finally exposed but never held to account.”
That statement goes to the crux of the matter .Why should journalists care about what is true
or a lie in their reports ,they know they will never be held to account .They should be held
to account through the court system . A lie by any journalist should be actionable by any
court of law . The fear of jail time would sort out the scam journalists we presently have to
endure . As it is they have perverted the profession of journalism and it is the law of the
jungle .No true democracy should put up with this. We are surrounded with lies that are
generated by the very establishment that should protect it’s citizens from same .
Skip Scott , July 4, 2020 at 15:36
They are spoon fed those lies by our “intelligence” agencies. As CNN’s
Jeff Zucker said, “We’re not investigators, we’re journalists”.
Replace “journalists” with “toadies” or “shills” for our
“intelligence” community and you’ve gotten to the truth of the matter.
Anna , July 6, 2020 at 09:50
The ‘journalists’ observe how things have been going on for Cheney the Traitor
and Bush the lesser — nothing happened to the mega criminals. The hate-bursting and
war-profiteering Cheney’s daughter has even squeezed into US Congress.
In a healthy society where human dignity is cherished, the Cheney family will be ostracized
and the family name became a synonym for the word ‘traitor.’ In the unhealthy
scoiety of Clintons, Obamas, Epstein, Mueller, Adelsons, Clapper, and Krystols, human dignity
is a sin.
Ricard Coleman , July 6, 2020 at 11:42
Our institutions including journalism are not merely corrupt, they are degenerate. That
is, the corruption is not occasional or the exception is is by design, desired and entirely
normal.
Stan W. , July 4, 2020 at 12:10
I’m still confident that Durham’s investigation will expose and successfully
prosecute the maggots that infest our government.
Skip Scott , July 4, 2020 at 15:29
What is the basis for this confidence?
John Puma , July 4, 2020 at 12:03
Re: whether Obumma “had earned some kind of degree from the Clapper/LeMay/McCarthy
School” of Russia Analytics.
It would be a worthy addition to his degree collection featuring that earned from the
Neville Chamberlain Night School of Critical Political Negotiation.
Jeff Harrison , July 4, 2020 at 11:16
Hmmm. Lessee. The US attacks Afghanistan with about the same legitimacy that we had when
we attacked Iraq and the Taliban are in charge. We oust the Taliban from power and put our
own puppets in place. What idiot thinks that the Taliban are going to need a bounty to kill
Americans?
Jeff Harrison, I like your logic. Plus, I understand that far fewer Americans are being
killed in Afghanistan than were under Obama’s administration.
AnneR , July 4, 2020 at 10:27
Frankly, I am sick to death of the unwarranted, indeed bestial Russophobia that is
megaphoned minute by minute on NPR and the BBC World Service (only radio here since my
husband died). If it isn’t this latest trumped up (ho ho) charge, there are repeated
mentions, in passing, of course, of the Russiagate, hacking, Kremlin control of the Strumpet
to back up the latest bunch of lies. Doesn’t matter at *all* that Russiagate was
debunked, that even Mueller couldn’t actually demonstrably pull the DNC/ruling elites
rabbit out of the hat, that the impeachment of the Strumpet went nowhere. And it clearly
– by its total absence on the above radio broadcasts – doesn’t matter one
iota that the Pentagonal hasn’t gone along, that gaping holes in the confabulation are
(and were) obvious to those who cared to think with half a mind awake and reflecting on past
US ruling elite lies, untruths, obfuscations. Nope. Just repeat, repeat, repeat. Orwell would
clap his hands (not because he agreed with the atrocious politics but the lesson is
learnt).
Added to the whipped up anti-Russia, decidedly anti-Putin crapola – is of course the
Russian peoples’ vote, decision making on their own country’s changes to the
Basic Law (a form of Constitution). When the radio broadcasts the usual sickening
anti-Russian/Putin propaganda regarding this vote immediately prior they would state that the
changes would install Putin for many more years: no mention that he would have to be elected,
i.e. voted by the populace into the presidency. (This was repeated ad infinitum without any
elaboration.) No other proposed changes were mentioned – certainly not that the Duma
would gain greater control over the governance of the country and over the president’s
cabinet. I.e. that the popularly elected (ain’t that what we call democracy??)
representatives in the Duma (parliament) would essentially have more power than the
president.
But most significantly, to my mind, no one has (well of course not – this is Russia)
raised the issue of the fact that it was the Russian people, the vox populi/hoi polloi, who
have had some say in how they are to be governed, how their government will work for them.
HOW much say have we had/do we have in how our government functions, works – let alone
for us, the hoi polloi? When did we the citizenry last have a voting say on ANY sentence in
the Constitution that governs us??? Ummm I do believe it was the creation of the wealthy
British descended slave holding, real estate ethnic-cleansing lot who wrote and ratified the
original document and the hardly dissimilar Congressional and state types who have over the
years written and voted on various amendments. And it is the members of the upper classes in
the Supreme Court who adjudicate on its application to various problems.
BUT We the hoi polloi have never, ever had a direct opportunity to individually vote for
or against any single part of the Constitution which is supposed to be the
“democratic” superstructure which governs us. Unlike the Russians a couple of
days ago.
Richard Coleman , July 6, 2020 at 15:48
“HOW much say have we had/do we have in how our government functions,
works…” See, that’s your mistake right there. WE don’t have a
government. We need one, but we ain’t got one. THEY have a government which they let us
go through the motions of electing. ‘Member back when Bernie was talking about a
Political Revolution?
Here’s a little fact for you. The five most populous states have a total of
123,000,000 people. That’s 10 Senators. The five least populated states have a total of
3.5 million. That’s also 10 Senators. Democracy anyone?
vinnieoh , July 4, 2020 at 09:37
There have been three coup d’état within the US within the lifetimes of most
that read these pages. The first was explained to us by Eisenhower only as he was exiting his
time from the national stage; the MIC had co-opted our government. The second happened in
2000, with the putsch in Florida and then the adoption by the neocon cabal of Bush /Chaney of
the PNAC blueprint “Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (Defenses
– hahahaha – shit!). The third happened late last year and early this year when
the bottom-up grass-roots movement of progressivism was crushed by the DNC and the
cold-warrior hack Biden was inserted as the champion of “the opposition
party.”
And, make no mistake that Kamala Harris WILL be his running mate. It was always going to
be Harris. It was to be Harris at the TOP of the ticket as the primaries began, but she
wasn’t even placing in the top tier in any of the contests. However, the poohbahs and
strategists of the DNC are nothing if not determined and consistent. If Biden should win, we
should all start practicing now saying “President Harris” because that is what
the future holds. For the DNC, she looks the part, she sounds the part, but more importantly
she is the very definition of the status quo, corporate ass-kisser, MIC tool.
The professional political class have fully colluded to fatally cripple this democratic
republic. “Democracy” is just a word they say like, “Where’s my
kickback?” (excuse me – my “motivation”.) This bounty scam and the
rehabilitation of GW Bush are nothing but a full blitzkrieg flanking of Trump on the right.
And Trump of course is so far out of his depth that he actually believes that Israel is his
friend. (A hint Donny: Israel is NO-ONE’S friend.)
What is most infuriating? hope-crushing? plain f$%&*#g scary? is that the majority of
Americans from all quarters do not want any of what the professional political class keeps
dumping on us. The very attempt at performing this upcoming election will finally and forever
lay completely bare the collapse of a functioning government. It’s going to be very
ugly, and it may very well be the end. Dog help us all.
Richard Coleman , July 6, 2020 at 15:51
Don’t you think that the assassination of JFK counts as a coup d’etat?
Zhu , July 7, 2020 at 02:10
Apres moi, le Deluge.
John Drake , July 7, 2020 at 11:25
Oh gosh how can you forget the Kennedy Assassination. Most people don’t realize he
was had ordered the removal of a thousand advisors from Vietnam starting the process of
completely cutting bait there, as he had in Laos and Cambodia. All of which made the generals
apoplectic. The great secret about Vietnam-which Ellsberg discovered much latter, and
mentioned in his book Secrets, another good read- was that every president had been warned it
was likely futile. Kennedy was the only one who took that intelligence seriously-like it was
actually intelligent intelligence.
Enter stage right Allen Dulles(fired CIA chief), the anti Castro Cubans, the Mafia and
most important the MIC; exit Jack Kennedy.
Douglas, JFK why he died and why it matters is the best work on the subject. And no Oswald
did not do it; it was a sniper team from different angles, but read the book it gets
complicated.
Roger , July 4, 2020 at 09:11
from Counterpunch.org : “Around 15,000 Soviet troops perished in the Afghan War
between 1979 and 1989. The US funneled more than $20 billion to the Mujahideen and other
anti-Soviet fighters over that same period. This works out to a “bounty” of $1.33
million for each Soviet soldier killed.”
Skip Scott , July 4, 2020 at 08:35
I am wondering how Cheney and Crow can block Trump from withdrawing the troops from
Afghanistan. Is Trump Commander in Chief, or not? How can two senators stop the Commander in
Chief from commanding troop movements? I realize they control the budget, but aren’t
they crossing into illegality by restricting Trump’s ability to
“command”?
Toad Sprocket , July 4, 2020 at 16:49
Yeah, I imagine it’s illegal. Didn’t Lindsay Graham threaten the same thing
when Trump was thinking of pulling troops/”advisers” from Syria? And other
congress warmongers joined in though I don’t think any legislation was passed. They
can’t be bothered to authorize the starts of wars but want to step in when someone
tries to end them.
Oh, and Schumer on South Korea troops, I think that one did pass. Almost certainly illegal
if it came down to it, but our government is of course lawless. And our courts full of judges
who are bought off or moronic or both.
dean 1000 , July 4, 2020 at 06:52
The soft coup attempt continues Ray. More lies and bullshit. It may continue until
election day. Will the media fess-up to its lies after the fact again?
Francis Lee , July 4, 2020 at 04:49
“Vladimir Putin wakes up every morning and goes to bed every night trying to figure
out how to destroy American democracy.”
Yes, of course it is a well-known ‘fact’ that Putin has nothing better to do
than destory American democracy, and I bet he has dreams about it too! But I am minded to
think that if anybody has a penchant for destroying American democracy it is the powers that
be in the US deep state, intelligence agencies, and zionist cliques controlling the President
and Congress.
”Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.”
The American establishment seems to be suffering from a bad case of
‘projection’ as psychiatrists call it. That is to say accusing others of what
they are themselves actually doing.
The whole idiotic circus would be hilarious if it were not so serious.
Antonia Young , July 4, 2020 at 12:20
Putin’s (and by extension the Russian Federation’s) primary objective is
international stability. “Destroying America, dividing Americans is the last thing he
wants.) Putin learned many lessons during the break-up of the U.S.S.R. observing the carpet
baggers/oligarchs/vultures who descended on the weak nation, absconding with it’s
wealth and resources at mere fractions of their real value. The deep state’s worst fear
is the co-operation btwn Putin and President Trump to make the world more peaceful, stable,
co-operative and prosperous.
rosemerry , July 4, 2020 at 16:10
The whole conceited and arrogant “belief” that
1. the USA has any resemblance to a democracy and
2 Pres. Putin has nothing else to do but think how he could do a better job of showing the
destructive and irresponsible behavior of the USA than its own leaders” and media can
do with no help
has no basis in reality.
If anything, Putin is such a stickler for international law, negotiations, avoidance of
conflict that he is regarded by many as too Christian for this modern, individualistic,
LBGTQ,”nobody matters but me” worldview of the USA!
Steve Naidamast , July 5, 2020 at 19:54
“If the enemy is self destructing, let them continue to do so…”
Napoleon
Zhu , July 7, 2020 at 02:17
“zionist cliques”: Christian Zionist fighting Fundies, eager for the End of
the World, the Second Coming of Jesus.
delia ruhe , July 4, 2020 at 01:09
Yup, we got a Bountygate. Since my early morning visit to the Foreign Policy site, the
place has exploded with breathless articles on the dastardly Putin and the cowardly Trump,
who has so far failed to hold Putin to account. Reminded me of a similar explosion there when
Russiagate finally got the attention the Dems thought it deserved.
(Anyone think that the intel community pays a fee to each of the FP columnists whenever
one of their a propaganda narratives needs a push to get it off the ground?)
He wrote a sensational book about the practices he experienced of the CIA paying German
journalists to publish certain stories.
The book was a big best seller in Germany.
Its English translation was suppressed for years, but I believe is now available.
Susan Siens , July 5, 2020 at 16:30
Reply to John Chuckman: I’d love to read this book but it wasn’t available a
few years ago when I looked. I’ll look again!
Voice from Europe , July 6, 2020 at 11:52
Gekaufte journalisten.
Ulfkotte admitted he signed off on numerous articles that were prepared for him during his
career. The last year’s of his life he changed his mores and advocated “better
die in truth than live with lies”.
Richard A. , July 4, 2020 at 00:59
I remember the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour from decades ago. Real experts on Russia like
Dimitri Simes and Stephen Cohen were the ones to appear on that NewsHour. The NewsHour of
today rarely has experts on Russia, just experts on Russia bashing–like Michael McFaul.
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Antonia Young , July 3, 2020 at 23:35
Thank you, Ray for your clarion voice in the midst of WMD-seventeen-point-oh. Will the
American people have the wisdom to notice how many times we’re being fooled? And
finally wake up and stop supporting these questionable news outlets? With appreciation for
your excellent analysis, as usual. ~Tonia Young (Formerly with the Topanga Peace
Alliance)
The majority of Americans have a lot more to worry about than the latest nonsense about
Russia. I think most people just tune it out.
The ones being fooled are the fools who have been lapping this crap up from the get go. The
supposed educated class who think themselves superior and well informed because they read and
listen to the propaganda of PBS, NPR, NYT etc.
They don’t seem to realize the ship is sinking while they’re playing these
ridiculous games.
Susan Siens , July 5, 2020 at 16:34
The supposedly educated class, yes! It can be stunning how people believe anything they
hear on PBS or NPR, and then they make fun of people who believe anything they hear on Fox
News. What’s the difference? Both are propaganda tools.
And, yes, watch us go down in flames while so-called progressives boo-hoo about Trump
thinking he’s above the law (like every other president before him). Our local
“peace and justice” group sent me an email asking me to sign a petition
supporting Robert Mueller. I was gobsmacked, and then I realized our local “peace and
justice” group had been taken over by Democratic Party “resisters.”
Jeezums, why is every word hijacked?
"Evidence" means testimony, writings, material objects, or other things presented to the
senses that are offered to prove the existence or nonexistence of a fact. -- California
Evidence Code sec 140
Even the NYT acknowledged (before it erased the text in its story on Reade that noted
there were no other sexual misconduct charges pending against him other than that long
history of assaults and sniffing and hands-on, text removed by the Times at the instance of
the Biden campaign staff?
Here's the original text: " The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden,
beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable."
Waiting for the apologists to tell us why the edit to remove the last clause starting "beyond
" is just "Good journalism."
He and Trump are bad examples of the male part of the species. Nothing to choose that I
can see, other than who among the people that revise those bribes to them will be the first
in line at the MMT watering hole
i had a lengthy discussion about this with my brother and sil, it came down to her saying
I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT re bidens history of being a ttl letch plus possible rapist and my
brother questioning what is obvious discomfort in multiple video evidence.
They said defeating trump was paramount to anything against biden. i simply give up at
this point.
Lots of partisan hackery and TDS going around in the last few years in once respectable
lefty publications. Mother Jones has gone completely to hell rather than raising any, as was
once their mission statement. I haven't read the Nation as much in recent years – I let
my subscription lapse a while ago as I found I just couldn't keep up with reading it.
Coincidentally I think that was about the time I started reading NC. The Nation has a history
of sheepdogging lefties to rally behind bad Dem candidates, which was another reason I didn't
feel bad letting my subscription go.
I do still have my subscription to Harper's but they were getting on my nerves quite a bit
to the point I considered cancelling them too. Rebecca Solnit wrote some truly cringe-worthy
editorials for them after Trump's election. They seem to have removed her from writing the
main editorial so maybe I wasn't the only one who felt she left a little to be desired. I'm
quite fond of the newer woman they have doing editorials, Lionel Shriver. She seems like
she'd fit in quite well here!
I left (pun intended) the Nation pub in the dust way back in the 1990's and buried it post
9/11. Used to be a real good alternative press pub 30-40 years ago. Somewhere along the line
it lost it's way and joined the wishy-washy "gatekeeper' society of "approved news."
RIP
The Nation was a sanity saviour back in late 70s and through 1980s; then something
happened. Not clear when or what, but I know I let my subscription lapse. Tried again later,
but it was never the same. It's mostly unbearable now, except for Stephen Cohen. Walsh has
been in the unbearable category for many years now.
Leonard Pitts just had an editorial in my local paper where he opined that even if Biden
had sexually assaulted Reade, it didn't really matter because we had to vote against
Trump.
I wrote this in reply:
So Leonard Pitts thinks that Biden's alleged sexual attack on Tara Reade isn't disqualifying,
even if true. Strange, he didn't think that way about Brett Kavanagh. I didn't want to attack
the columnist as a hypocrite without being sure, so I looked it up. Here is what he
wrote:
"It's a confluence of facts that speak painfully and pointedly to just how unseriously
America takes men's predations against women. You might disagree, noting that the Senate
Judiciary Committee has asked Ford to testify. But if history is any guide, that will prove
to be a mere formality – a sop to appearances – before the committee recommends
confirmation."
Looks very much like "Well, It's excusable when our guys do it."
Always had a crush on K v d Heuvel. (How's that for an opening to a post about misogyny
and sexual misconduct)?
But can't we disqualify Joe! as the craven proponent of the worst neo-lib policies that
got us exactly where we are today? Or, in polite company, ask politely whether he is even in
a mental state to hand over the keys to the to the family car, let alone the nuclear
football?
Let's take the Id out of IdPol, I don't care if the candidate has green skin and three
eyes if the policies they would enact come within smelling distance of benefiting the 99% (or
more precisely in Joe's case within hair smelling distance).
We can use his personal conduct as a component in our judgement but pleeease can we focus
on the stuff that would actually affect our lives. In his case, for the absolute worse.
(Note: I sincerely doubt whether Joe is currently allowed to drive a car, please oh please
Mr.God-Yahweh-Mohammed-Buddha-Obama can we not let him drive a nation).
"... In 2017, a woman working with frontline families told me why she didn't want reintegration. 'These [the population of rebel-held
Donbass] are people with a minimum level of human development, people raised by their TVs. Okay, so we live together, then what? We're
trying to build a completely new society.' ..."
"... And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan
government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass with their
'minimum level of human development'. ..."
I'd never heard of the Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group (EASLG) until today, even though it turns out that one of its members
has the office next door to mine. Its
website says that
it seeks to respond to the challenge of East-West tensions by convening 'former and current officials and experts from a group of
Euro-Atlantic states and the European union to test ideas and develop proposals for improving security in areas of existential common
interest'. It hopes thereby to 'generate trust through dialogue.'
It's hard to object to any of this, but its latest
statement , entitled 'Twelve Steps Toward Greater Security in Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic Region', doesn't inspire a lot of
confidence. The 'twelve steps' the EASLG proposes to improve security in Eastern Ukraine are generally pretty uninspiring, being
largely of the 'set up a working group to explore' variety, or of such a vaguely aspirational nature as to be almost worthless (e.g.
'Advance reconstruction of Donbas An essential first step is to conduct a credible needs assessment for the Donbas region to inform
a strategy for its social-economic recovery.' Sounds nice, but in reality doesn't amount to a hill of beans).
For the most part, these proposals attempt to treat the symptoms of the war in Ukraine without addressing the root causes. In
a sense, that's fine, as symptoms need treating, but it's sticking plaster when the patient needs some invasive surgery. At the end
of its statement, though, the EASLG does go one step further with 'Step 12: Launch a new national dialogue about identity', saying:
A new, inclusive national dialogue across Ukraine is desirable and could be launched as soon as possible. Efforts should be
made to engage with perspectives from Ukraine's neighbors, especially Poland, Hungary, and Russia. This dialogue should address
themes of history and national memory, language, identity, and minority experience. It should include tolerance and respect for
ethnic and religious minorities in order to increase engagement, inclusiveness, and social cohesion.
This is admirably trendy and woke, but in the Ukrainian context somewhat explosive, as it implicitly challenges the identity politics
of the post-Maidan regime. Unsurprisingly, it's gone down like a lead balloon in Kiev. The notorious website Mirotvorets even
went so far as to add former
German ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger to its blacklist of enemies of Ukraine for having had the temerity to sign the EASLG statement
and thus 'taking part in Russia's propaganda events aimed against Ukraine.' Katherine Quinn-Judge of the International Crisis Group
commented on Twitter, 'As the idea of dialogue
becomes more mainstream, backlash to the concept grows fiercer.' 'In Ukraine, prominent pro-Western politicians, civic activists,
and media, have called Step 12 "a provocation" and "dangerous",' she added
Quinn-Judge comes across as generally sympathetic to the Ukrainian narrative about the war in Donbass, endorsing the idea that
it's largely a product of 'Russian aggression'. But she also recognizes that the war has an internal, social dimension which the
Ukrainian government and its elite-level supporters refuse to acknowledge. Consequently, they also reject any sort of dialogue, either
with Russia or with the rebels in Donbass. As Quinn-Judge notes in another Tweet:
An advisor to one of Ukraine's most powerful pol[itician]s told us recently of his concern about talk of dialogue in international
and domestic circles. 'We have all long ago agreed among ourselves. We need to return our territory, and then work with that sick
– sick – population.'
This isn't an isolated example. Quinn-Judge follows up with a couple more similar statements:
Social resentments underpin some opposition to disengagement, for example. An activist in [government-controlled] Shchastye
told me recently that she feared disengagement and the reopening of the bridge linking the isolated town to [rebel-held] Luhansk:
'I don't want all that trash coming over here.'
In 2017, a woman working with frontline families told me why she didn't want reintegration. 'These [the population of rebel-held
Donbass] are people with a minimum level of human development, people raised by their TVs. Okay, so we live together, then what?
We're trying to build a completely new society.'
And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan
government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass with their
'minimum level of human development'. You can fiddle with treating Donbass' symptoms as much as you like, à la EASLG,
but unless you tackle this fundamental problem, the disease will keep on ravaging the subject for a long time to come. In due course,
I suggest, the only realistic cure will be to remove the patient entirely from the cause of infection.
All that you have described above is very sad, but not very surprising – which is itself very sad. I think Patrick Armstrong is
right that a lot of the reason Ukraine is not and has never been a functional polity is because much if not most of the population
cannot accept that the right side won WWII.
Contempt and loathing towards the Donbass is a pretty popular feeling amongst Ukrainian svidomy. E.g., one of the two regular
pro-Ukrainian commenters on my blog.
To his credit, he supports severing the Donbass from Ukraine (as one would a gangrenous limb – his metaphor) as opposed to
trying to claw it back. Which is an internally consistent position.
Same guy who doesn't consider Yanukovych as having been overthrown under coup like circumstances, while downplaying Poland's
past subjugation of Rus territory.
In Part I and II we saw how much truth is there in Herr Karlin's claim of being a model of the rrrracially purrrre Rrrrrrrussian
plus some personal views.
Part III (this one) gives a peek into his cultural and upbringing limits, which "qualify" him as an expert of all things Russian,
who speaks on behalf of the People and the Country.
" I left when I was six, in 1994 , so I'm not really the best person to ask this question of – it should probably be directed
to my parents, or even better, the Russian government at the time which had for all intents and purposes ceased paying academics
their salaries.
I went to California for higher education and because its beaches and mountains made for a nice change from the bleakness of
Lancashire.
I returned to Russia because if I like Putler so much, why don't I go back there? Okay, less flippancy. I am Russian, I
do not feel like a foreigner here, I like living in Moscow, added bonus is that I get much higher quality of life for the buck
than in California ."
"I never went to school, don't have any experience with writing in Russian, and have been overexposed to Anglo culture ,
so yes, it's no surprise that my texts will sound strange."
The Russian branch of Carnegie Endowment did a piece on this issue. It mostly fits your ideas, but the author suggests it was
a compromise, short-term solution – what steps can be taken right now, without crossing red lines of either side – but compromise
is unwelcome among both parties. The official Russian reaction was quite cold too.
Upon a quick perusal of the website of the org at issue, Alexey Arbatov and Susan Eisenhower have some kind of affiliation
with it, thus maybe explaining the compromise approach you mention.
This matter brings to mind Trump saying one thing during his presidential bid – only to then bring in people in key positions
who don't agree with what he campaigned on.
In terms of credentials and name status, the likes of Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, Stephen Cohen and Jim Jatras, are needed in
Trump's admin for the purpose of having a more balanced foreign policy approach that conforms with US interests (not to be necessarily
confused with what neocons and neolibs favor).
Instead, Trump has been top heavy with geopolitical thinking opposites. He possibly thought that having them in would take
some of the criticism away from him.
The arguably ideal admin has both sides of an issue well represented, with the president intelligently deciding what's best.
On the BBC and on other media there are films of Ukrainians attacking a bus with people evacuated from China. These people
even wanted to burn down the hospital where the peoplew were taken (along with other unrelated patients)
This is a sign of a degraded society – attacking people who may or may not be ill!!!
Ukraine will eventually break up
The nationalist agenda is just degrading the society.
-The economy is failing
-People who can, are leaving
-The elected government has no control over the violent people who take to the streets
It's clear Zelensky is a puppet no different to Poroshenko – this destroys the idea that democracy is a good thing.
It's very sad that the EU and the Americans under Obama – empowered these decisive elements and then blame Russia.
Crimea did the right thing leaving Ukraine – Donbass hopefully will follow.
"And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan
government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass"
[ ]
Only them?
[ ]
Yesterday marks yet another milestone on the Ukrainian glorious шлях перемог and long and arduous return to the Family
of the European Nations. The Civil Society ™ of the Ukraine rose as one in the mighty CoronavirusMaidan, against the jackbooted
goons of the crypto-Napoleon (and agent of Putin) Zelensky. Best people from Poltava oblast' (whose ancestors without doubt, welcomed
Swedish Euro-integrators in 1709) and, most important of all, from the Best (Western) Ukrajina, who 6 years ago made the Revolution
of Dignity in Kiev the reality and whom pan Poroshenko called the best part of the Nation, said their firm "Геть вiд Москви!"
to their fellow Ukrainian citizens, evacuated from Wuhan province in China
The Net is choke full of vivid, memorable videos, showing that 6 years after Maidan, the Ukraine now constitute a unified,
эдiна та соборна country. You all, no doubt, already watched these clips, where a brave middle-aged gentleman from the
Western Ukraine, racially pure Ukr, proves his mental acuity by deducing, that crypto-tyrant (and "не лох") Zelensky wants to
settle evacuees in his pristine oblast out of vengeance, because the Best Ukrajina didn't vote for him during the election. Or
a clip about a brave woman from Poltava oblast, suggesting to relocate the Trojan-horse "fellow countrymen" to Chernobol's Zone.
Or even the witty comments and suggestions by the paragons of the Ukrainian Civil Society, " волонтэры ":
Shy and conscientious members of the Ukrainian (national!) intelligentsia had their instincts aligned rrrrrright. When they
learned about that their hospital will be the one receiving the evacuees from Wuhan, the entire medical personell of that Poltava
oblast medical facility rose to their feet and sang "Shenya vmerla". Democracy and localism proved once again the strongest suit
of the pro-European Ukraine, with Ternopol's oblast regional council voting to accept the official statement to the crypto-tyrant
Zelensky, which calls attempts to place evacuees on their Holy land "an act of Genocide of the Ukrainian People" (c)
That's absolutely "normal", predictable reaction of the "racially pure Ukrainians" to their own fellow citizens. Now, Professor,
are you insisting on seeking or even expecting "compromise" with them ? What to do, if after all these years, there is
no such thing as the united Ukrainian political nation?
"Ukraine's democracy is flourishing like never before due to the tireless efforts of grassroots, pro-democracy, civil-society
groups. Many Ukrainians say their country is now firmly set on an irreversible, pro-Western trajectory. Moreover, the country
has also undertaken a top-to-bottom cultural, economic, and political divorce from its former Soviet overlord.
Today, Ukraine is a democratic success story in the making, despite Russia's best efforts to the contrary."
– Nolan Peterson, a former special operations pilot and a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, is The Daily Signal's foreign
correspondent based in Ukraine
At
the Munich Security Conference the U.S. and its allies had no idea of how to handle China, a
problem of their greed and stupidity. The West is divided, confused. What to do about Huawei?
Really, what to do with China?
So when Mike Pompeo proclaimed "we are winning," the largely European audience was silent
and worried in what sense "we" existed longer.
In the meantime, Europe, including the U.K, finds itself in a mincer between the U.S. and
China
Unfortunately for us. China has followed the U.S. playbook and has outplayed the West,
especially the U.S.
Walter Rostow of the Johnson administration, an avid anti-communist, wrote the playbook: How
can an undeveloped nation take its place among the leaders of the world.
The answer : Industrialize as rapidly as possible. Do whatever it takes. China did just
that.
In its five year plans, China acknowledged its debt to Rostow and started to industrialize.
While I have described this process many years ago, I again outline it briefly here.
First : China entered the W.T.O. Bill Clinton and Congress were accommodating and
instrumental:
Last fall, as all of you know, the United States signed an agreement to bring China into the
W.T.O, on terms that will open its markets to American products and investments.
Bill Clinton speaking before Congress, March 9, 1998
Second : China offered dirt cheap labor, labor that had no effective right to bargain
Third : China did not require a company to obey any environmental regulations.
Fourth : China often offered a ten-year grace period without any taxation. If there were taxes
they were less than those on its own indigenous firms.
Fifth : China manipulated its currency, making products cheaper to make but getting higher
profits in the West.
The net resul t: Massive trade imbalance in favor of China. CEOs and their henchmen made
enormous profits. Devastated American workers were told to go to school, to work harder, to make
themselves invaluable to their companies. A cruel joke.
In droves, Western companies outsourced to China, emptying one factory after another. Anything
that could be outsourced was outsourced. China, of course, was not the sole beneficiary of U.S.
foolishness. India, Mexico, Vietnam wherever environmental standards were non-existent, wherever
workers had no effective rights these were the third world countries the U.S. used. The health
and safety of third world workers was of no concern. They were many–and they were
expendable.
U.S. companies were so profitable that special arrangements were made to repatriate those
profits back to the states: pennies on the dollar. Many billionaires should really be thanking
China.
Americans were considered only consumers/ The more they consumed, the richer the rich became.
Credit was made easy. George Bush's answer to 911 was: Go out and shop.+
Between The Financial Modernization Act of 1999 and Free trade insanity, the working class of
American faced the crash of 2008.
China became the factory of the world, not through automation, but through dirt cheap labor.
China poisoned its atmosphere and polluted its water. Face masks were everywhere. Nonetheless,
China had become undeniable economic power, challenging the U.S.
At the same time, China educated great numbers of engineers, inventors, and scientists. Huwaii
became the problem really, Huwaii is just an emblem of it.
The U.S. in its greed had became lazy. It poured money into weapons. The U.S. decided to build
a space force. U.S. bullied countries with foolish sanctions if those countries did not make
their billionaire class more profitable. Sanctions instead of competition became last gasp, the
last grasp at profit. Flabby and greedy, the U.S.is no longer competitive. It has become just a
bully, a threat to everyone.
Trump, of course, played both sides of the problem. He railed against the outsourcing, but has
done little to correct it, giving instead massive tax breaks to the wealthy, gutting
environmental regulations laying waste to everything he touches. Pelosi and Schumer pretend to
care, but they have nothing to offer. Like Trump, they worry about China. Like Trump, they have
no answer, except for more wars and more sanctions.
Hillary and Bill should take a bow. They began this debacle. Once things were made in the
U.S.A. Go to any Walmart store and read the label: Made in China.
Pelosi and the free trade Democrats should take a bow as should all the Republicans. All of
them should hold hands, give each other a quick hug and smile. They and their friends are
rich.
To China belongs the future.
Terry , February 16, 2020 8:27 pm
Economics 101 says trade benefits all participants. The problem is not China but the United
States. The oligarchs have sucked up all the benefits of trade and have bought the government
to keep the good times going. Obama played along unlike FDR with the result that the oligarchs
came out stronger than ever while everyone else had a second rate rather than a third rate
health care system which Trump and the GOP are struggling to return to a third rate system. You
can blame China or the "laziness " of Americans, but the real problem is the moneyed class who
do not give a crap about the country or its citizens but only how to hang onto their privileged
existence. I hate to even think it but I do not see this thing ending peacefully.
MARK LOHR , February 16, 2020 8:27 pm
And in turn funding China's considerable, unabated, and ongoing military expansion.
The screws are turning; the noose tightening.
That Western governments of all leanings have not counter-vailed for many decades now is a tale
of enormous short-sightedness and cultural hubris.
davebarnes , February 16, 2020 9:24 pm
Didn't I read the same thing about Japan 20+ years ago?
MARK LOHR , February 16, 2020 10:50 pm
Yes. And to be sure, China faces all the limits inherent to a totalitarian system. However,
unlike Japan, they have remilitarized and have demonstrated expansionist goals –
artificial island military outposts, Belt and Road, etc.
Besides stealing/extorting etc our IP.
Mark,
Where do you get your information? China has one military base outside its borders. The U.S.
has over 800. China does not pour its money into a military budge; the U.S. does.
Try the actual facts, for a change.
likbez , February 17, 2020 9:34 am
To China belongs the future.
I think it is too early to write down the USA. Historically the USA proved to be highly
adaptable society (look at the New Deal). And I think that still there is a chance that it
might be capable of jumping the sinking ship of neoliberalism. Although I have problems with
Sanders's economic program, Sanders's victory might be instrumental for that change.
China adopted neoliberalism, much like the USA. It was just lucky to be on the receiving end
of the outflow of the capital from the USA. It has a more competent leadership and avoided the
fate of the USSR for which the attempt to the adoption of neoliberalism ( aka Perestroika )
proved to be fatal.
I suspect that the main problem for China is that Neoliberalism, as a social system, is
incompatible with the rule of the Communist Party.
Fundamentally what China has now is a variation of the Soviet "New Economic Policy" (NEP)
invented by Bolsheviks after the Civil War in Russia, and while providing a rapid economic
development, China has all the problems that are known for this policy.
One is the endemic corruption of state officials due to the inability of capital to rise
above a certain level of political influence and systematic attempts to buy this influence.
That necessitates periodic campaigns against corruption and purges/jailing of officials,
which does not solve the fundamental problem which is systemic.
The other problem is that the Communist Party is such mode degrades into something like
amorphous "holding company" staff for the country (managing state tier in the two tie economy
-- state capitalism at the top; neoliberalism at the middle and the bottom)
Which necessitates the rule of a strong leader, the Father of the Nation, who is capable to
conduct purges and hold the Party together by suppressing the appetite of local Party
functionaries using brutal repressions. But the Party functionaries understand that they no
longer conduct Marxist policies, and that undermines morale. That they are essentially
renegades, and that creates a huge stimulus for "make money fast" behavior and illicit
self-enrichment.
Which paradoxically necessitate the hostility with the USA as the mean to cement the Party
and suppress the dissent. So not only the USA neocons and MIC are interested in China, China,
China (and/or Russia, Russia, Russia) bogeyman.
That also creates for Chinese senior Communist Party leadership an incentive at some point
to implement "Stalin-style solution" to the problems with New Economic Policy.
So it looks like Neo-McCarthyism in the USA has a long and prosperous future, as both sides
are interested in its continuation
BTW another example of NEP as a policy was Tito Yugoslavia, which no longer exists.
Yet another example was Gorbachov's "Perestroika," which logically led to the dissolution of
the USSR. With the subjective factor of the total incompetence of Gorbachov as a leader -- with
some analogies as for this level of incompetence with Trump.
As well as general "simplification," and degeneration of Politburo similar to what we
observe with the USA Congress now: the USSR in the 1980th has become a gerontocracy.
But the major factor was that the top KGB officials and several members of Politburo,
including Gorbachov, became turncoats and changed sides attempting to change the system to
neoliberalism, which was at the time on the assent; Russia always picks the worst possible time
for the social change
While neoliberalism is definitely in decline and its ideology is discredited, I still think
there are fundamental problems in tis interaction with the Communist Party rule, that might
eventually cause the social crisis for China.
But only time will tell
BTW Professor Stephen Cohen books contain very interesting information about NEP, Russia
adoption of neoliberalism (and related dissolution of the USSR) and Russia social development
in general
Looking at various indices like median household income and average wage, it seems as if living standards in Russia are substantially
below western European levels and even slightly below central Europe. (Estonia and Poland are consistently slightly higher, Hungary
often a bit lower.) Compared to China, going by the same sources and others, Russian wages are roughly twice as high as China's
That creates separatist movements within the country, including Islamist movements in Muslim-dominated regions.
So their posture is strictly defensive, and probably is not much more than a mild defensive reaction to "Full-spectrum Dominance"
doctrine and the aggressive foreign policy conducted by the USA neocons (which totally dominate NSC and the State Department, as
we saw from Ukrainegate testimonies)
The USA coup d'état in Ukraine actually have a blowback for the USA -- it neutralized influence and political status of Russia
neoliberal fifth column (neoliberal compradors), and if not Putin (who is paradoxically a pro-Western neoliberal; although of "national
neoliberalism" flavor similar to Trumpism ) some of them probably would be now hanging from the lamp posts. They are really hated
by population after hardships, comparable with WWII hardships, imposed on ordinary Russian during Western-enforced neoliberalization
under marionette Yeltsin government and attempt to grab Russian resources for pennies on a dollar. "Marshall plan" for Russia instead
of economic rape would be a much better policy.
I think Obama-Nuland plot to turn Ukraine into the USA vassal state was yet another very dangerous move, which hurts the USA national
security and greatly increased chances of military confrontation with Russia (aka mutual annihilation)
It was worse then a crime, it was a blunder. And now the USA needs to support this vassal with money we do not have.
The role of NSC in militarizing the USA foreign policy is such that it neutralizes any impulses of any US administration (if we
assume they exist) to improve relations with Russia.
Neoliberal Dems now is a second war party which bet on neo-McCarthyism to weaken Trump. They went into the complete status of
psychosis in this area. I view it as a psychotic reaction to the first signs of the collapse of the USA-centered global neoliberal
empire (which will happen anyway independently of Russian moves)
That's actually a very dangerous situation indeed, and I am really afraid that the person who will replace Putin will not have
Putin steel nerves, diplomatic talent, and the affinity with the West. Then what ? another Sarajevo and another war?
With warmongering "raptured" crazies like Mike, "we killed up to 200 Russians" Pompeo, the situation can really become explosive
like before WWI. Again, after Putin leaves the political scene, the Sarajevo incident is easy to stage, especially with such incompetent
marionette of the military-industrial complex like Trump at the helm.
I believe antagonizing Russia was a reckless, very damaging to the USA interest move, the move initiated by Clinton administration
and supported by all subsequent administration as weakening and possibly dismembering Russia is one of the key aspect of Full Spectrum
Dominance doctrine. . And we will pay a huge price for this policy.
See also Professor Stephen Cohen books on the subject.
Why do you pose this as antagonizing either Russsia or Iran? They are somewhat allied, so in fact antagonizing Iran as we are
doing also antagonizes Russia.
Likbez,
The relative economic position of Russia in terms of median income is no different today than it was 30 years ago before Yeltsin,
except for the rise of China. It was behind the European nations to its west, both those that were under its domination and those
that were not, and it still is. So no big deal.
And somehow you have this fantasy that if it were not for Obama-Nuland, Ukrainians would just loooove to be under Russian
domination.
f you think this, you ser both foolish and very ignorant.
likbez February 16, 2020 10:30 pm
And somehow you have this fantasy that if it were not for Obama-Nuland, Ukrainians would just loooove to be under Russian
domination. f you think this, you ser both foolish and very ignorant.
I might well be foolish and ignorant (I am far from being the specialist in the region), but I suspect Ukrainians do prefer
the exchange rate ~8.5 hrivnas to a dollar (before the coup) to the current 25 hrivnas to a dollar.
Especially taking into account stagnant salaries and actual parity of prices in dollars for many types of food (especially
meat), industrial products, and services between the USA and Ukraine.
I recently talked with one Ukrainian woman who told me that the "bribe" (unofficial payments due to low salaries for doctors
and nurses in state clinics) for the child delivery was $1000 in Kiev in 2014 and she gave birth exactly at the time when hrivna
jumped from 8.5 to over 20 per dollar. That was a tragedy for her and her family.
And please remember that the average SS pension in Ukraine is around 1500 hrivna a month (~ $60). So to me, it is completely
unclear how pensioners can survive at all while the government is buying super expensive American weapons "to defend the country
from Russian aggression."
The January 2nd American assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani of Iran was an event of
enormous moment.
Gen. Soleimani had been the highest-ranking military figure in his nation of 80 million, and
with a storied career of 30 years, one of the most universally popular and highly regarded.
Most analysts ranked him second in influence only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's elderly
Supreme Leader, and there were widespread reports that he was being urged to run for the
presidency in the 2021 elections.
The circumstances of his peacetime death were also quite remarkable. His vehicle was
incinerated by the missile of an American Reaper drone near Iraq's Baghdad international
airport just after he had arrived there on a regular commercial flight for peace negotiations
originally suggested by the American government.
Our major media hardly ignored the gravity of this sudden, unexpected killing of so
high-ranking a political and military figure, and gave it enormous attention. A day or so
later, the front page of my morning New York Times was almost entirely filled with
coverage of the event and its implications, along with several inside pages devoted to the same
topic. Later that same week, America's national newspaper of record allocated more than
one-third of all the pages of its front section to the same shocking story.
But even such copious coverage by teams of veteran journalists failed to provide the
incident with its proper context and implications. Last year, the Trump Administration
had declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard "a terrorist organization," drawing widespread
criticism and even ridicule from national security experts appalled at the notion of
classifying a major branch of Iran's armed forces as "terrorists." Gen. Soleimani was a top
commander in that body, and this apparently provided the legal figleaf for his assassination in
broad daylight while on a diplomatic peace mission.
But consider that Congress has been considering
legislation declaring Russia an official state sponsor of terrorism , and Stephen Cohen,
the eminent Russia scholar, has argued that no foreign leader since the end of World War II has
been so massively demonized by the American media as Russian President Vladimir Putin. For
years, numerous agitated pundits have denounced
Putin as "the new Hitler," and some prominent figures have even called for his
overthrow or death. So we are now only a step or two removed from undertaking a public
campaign to assassinate the leader of a country whose nuclear arsenal could quickly annihilate
the bulk of the American population. Cohen has repeatedly warned that the current danger of
global nuclear war may exceed that which we faced during the days of the 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis, and can we entirely dismiss such concerns?
Even if we focus solely upon Gen. Solemaini's killing and entirely disregard its dangerous
implications, there seem few modern precedents for the official public assassination of a
top-ranking political figure by the forces of another major country. In groping for past
examples, the only ones that come to mind occurred almost three generations ago during World
War II, when Czech agents assisted by the Allies assassinated Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in
1941 and the US military later shot down the plane of Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in
1943. But these events occurred in the heat of a brutal global war, and the Allied leadership
hardly portrayed them as official government assassinations. Historian David Irving reveals
that when one of Adolf Hitler's aides suggested that an attempt be made to assassinate Soviet
leaders in that same conflict, the German Fuhrer immediately forbade such practices as obvious
violations of the laws of war.
The 1914 terrorist assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of
Austria-Hungary, was certainly organized by fanatical elements of Serbian Intelligence, but the
Serbian government fiercely denied its own complicity, and no major European power was ever
directly implicated in the plot. The aftermath of the killing soon led to the outbreak of World
War I, and although many millions died in the trenches over the next few years, it would have
been completely unthinkable for one of the major belligerents to consider assassinating the
leadership of another.
A century earlier, the Napoleonic Wars had raged across the entire continent of Europe for
most of a generation, but I don't recall reading of any governmental assassination plots during
that era, let alone in the quite gentlemanly wars of the preceding 18th century when Frederick
the Great and Maria Theresa disputed ownership of the wealthy province of Silesia by military
means. I am hardly a specialist in modern European history, but after the 1648 Peace of
Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War and regularized the rules of warfare, no assassination as
high-profile as that of Gen. Soleimani comes to mind.
The bloody Wars of Religion of previous centuries did see their share of assassination
schemes. For example, I think that Philip II of Spain supposedly encouraged various plots to
assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England on grounds that she was a murderous heretic, and their
repeated failure helped persuade him to launch the ill-fated Spanish Armada; but being a pious
Catholic, he probably would have balked at using the ruse of peace-negotiations to lure
Elizabeth to her doom. In any event, that was more than four centuries ago, so America has now
placed itself in rather uncharted waters.
Different peoples possess different political traditions, and this may play a major role in
influencing the behavior of the countries they establish. Bolivia and Paraguay were created in
the early 18th century as shards from the decaying Spanish Empire, and according to Wikipedia
they have experienced nearly three dozen successful coups in their history, the bulk of these
prior to 1950, while Mexico has had a half-dozen. By contrast, the U.S. and Canada were founded
as Anglo-Saxon settler colonies, and neither history records even a failed attempt.
During our Revolutionary War, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and our other Founding
Fathers fully recognized that if their effort failed, they would all be hanged by the British
as rebels. However, I have never heard that they feared falling to an assassin's blade, nor
that King George III ever considered such an underhanded means of attack. During the first
century and more of our nation's history, nearly all our presidents and other top political
leaders traced their ancestry back to the British Isles, and political assassinations were
exceptionally rare, with Abraham Lincoln's death being one of the very few that come to
mind.
At the height of the Cold War, our CIA did involve itself in various secret assassination
plots against Cuba's Communist dictator Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders considered
hostile to US interests. But when these facts later came out in the 1970s, they evoked such
enormous outrage from the public and the media, that three consecutive American presidents --
Gerald R.
Ford , Jimmy
Carter , and Ronald Reagan -- issued successive
Executive Orders absolutely prohibiting assassinations by the CIA or any other agent of the US
government.
Although some cynics might claim that these public declarations represented mere
window-dressing, a
March 2018 book review in the New York Times strongly suggests otherwise. Kenneth M.
Pollack spent years as a CIA analyst and National Security Council staffer, then went on to
publish a number of influential books on foreign policy and military strategy over the last two
decades. He had originally joined the CIA in 1988, and opens his review by declaring:
One of the very first things I was taught when I joined the CIA was that we do not conduct
assassinations. It was drilled into new recruits over and over again.
Yet Pollack notes with dismay that over the last quarter-century, these once solid
prohibitions have been steadily eaten away, with the process rapidly accelerating after the
9/11 attacks of 2001. The laws on our books may not have changed, but
Today, it seems that all that is left of this policy is a euphemism.
We don't call them assassinations anymore. Now, they are "targeted killings," most often
performed by drone strike, and they have become America's go-to weapon in the war on
terror.
The Bush Administration had conducted 47 of these assassinations-by-another-name, while his
successor Barack Obama, a constitutional scholar and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, had raised his
own total to 542. Not without justification, Pollack wonders whether assassination has become
"a very effective drug, but [one that] treats only the symptom and so offers no cure."
Thus over the last couple of decades American policy has followed a very disturbing
trajectory in its use of assassination as a tool of foreign policy, first restricting its use
to only the most extreme circumstances, next targeting small numbers of high-profile
"terrorists" hiding in rough terrain, then escalating those same such killings to the many
hundreds. And now under President Trump, the fateful step has been taken of America claiming
the right to assassinate any world leader not to our liking whom we unilaterally declare worthy
of death.
Pollack had made his career as a Clinton Democrat, and is best known for his 2002 book
The Threatening Storm that strongly endorsed President Bush's proposed invasion of Iraq
and was enormously
influential in producing bipartisan support for that ill-fated policy. I have no doubt that
he is a committed supporter of Israel, and he probably falls into a category that I would
loosely describe as "Left Neocon."
But while reviewing a history of Israel's own long use of assassination as a mainstay of its
national security policy, he seems deeply disturbed that America might be following along that
same terrible path. Less than two years later, our sudden assassination of a top Iranian leader
demonstrates that his fears may have been greatly understated.
The book being reviewed was Rise and Kill First by New York Times reporter
Ronen Bergman, a weighty study of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service, together
with its sister agencies. The author devoted six years of research to the project, which was
based upon a thousand personal interviews and access to some official documents previously
unavailable. As suggested by the title, his primary focus was Israel's long history of
assassinations, and across his 750 pages and thousand-odd source references he recounts the
details of an enormous number of such incidents.
That sort of topic is obviously fraught with controversy, but Bergman's volume carries
glowing cover-blurbs from Pulitzer Prize-winning authors on espionage matters, and the official
cooperation he received is indicated by similar endorsements from both a former Mossad chief
and Ehud Barak, a past Prime Minister of Israel who himself had once led assassination squads.
Over the last couple of decades, former CIA officer Robert Baer has become one of our most
prominent authors in this same field, and he praises the book as "hands down" the best he has
ever read on intelligence, Israel, or the Middle East. The reviews across our elite media were
equally laudatory.
Although I had seen some discussions of the book when it appeared, I only got around to
reading it a few months ago. And while I was deeply impressed by the thorough and meticulous
journalism, I found the pages rather grim and depressing reading, with their endless accounts
of Israeli agents killing their real or perceived enemies, with the operations sometimes
involving kidnappings and brutal torture, or resulting in considerable loss of life to innocent
bystanders. Although the overwhelming majority of the attacks described took place in the
various countries of the Middle East or the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank
and Gaza, others ranged across the world, including Europe. The narrative history began in the
1920s, decades before the actual creation of the Jewish Israel or its Mossad organization, and
ranged up to the present day.
The sheer quantity of such foreign assassinations was really quite remarkable, with the
knowledgeable reviewer in the New York Times suggesting that the Israeli total over the
last half-century or so seemed far greater than that of any other country. I might even go
farther: if we excluded domestic killings, I wouldn't be surprised if the body-count exceeded
the combined total for that of all other major countries in the world. I think all the lurid
revelations of lethal CIA or KGB Cold War assassination plots that I have seen discussed in
newspaper stories might fit comfortably into just a chapter or two of Bergman's extremely long
book.
A Thursday article by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone discusses Dennis Kucinich's work in
politics, from Kucinich's eight terms in the United Sates House of Representatives to his two
presidential campaigns to his activities since leaving political office. Taibbi, in the article
focused much on Kucinich's long-term devotion to advancing the case for peace, describes
Kucinich as "antiwar to his core."
The downplaying of Russian participation at Pyeongchang, is seemingly done to spin the image
of many Russian cheats being kept out. At the suggestion of the World Anti-Doping Agency
(WADA), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) closely vetted Russians for competition at
the 2018 Winter Olympics. In actuality, the 2018 Russian Winter Olympic participation wasn't so
off the mark, when compared to past Winter Olympiads – something which (among other
things) puts a dent into the faulty notion that Russia should be especially singled out for
sports doping.
At the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Russia had its largest ever Winter Olympic contingent of
232 , on account of the host nation being allowed a greater number of participants. The
168 Russian Winter Olympians at Pyeongchang is
9 less than the Russians who competed at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Going back further,
Russian Winter Olympic participation in 2006 was at
190 , with its 2002 contingent at
151 , 1998 having
122 and 1994 (Russia's first formal Winter Olympic appearance as Russia)
113 .
The aforementioned Reuters piece references a " historian ", Bill Mallon, who is keen
on using the 1992 Summer Olympic banning of Yugoslavia (then consisting of Serbia and
Montenegro) as a legitimate basis to ban Russia from the upcoming Summer Olympics.
In this instance, Alan Dershowitz's periodic reference to the " if the shoe is on the other
foot " test is quite applicable . Regarding Mallon, " historian " is put in
quotes because his historically premised advocacy is very much incomplete and overly
propagandistic.
For consistency sake and contrary to Mallon, Yugoslavia should've formally participated at
the 1992 Summer Olympics. The Olympic banning of Yugoslavia was bogus, given that the IOC and
the IOC affiliated sports federations didn't ban the US and USSR for their respective role in
wars, which caused a greater number of deaths than what happened in 1990s Bosnia. The Reuters
article at issue references a United Nations resolution for sanctions against Yugoslavia,
without any second guessing, in support of the preference (at least by some) to keep politics
out of sports as much as possible.
Mallon casually notes that Yugoslav team sports were banned from the 1992 Summer Olympics,
unlike individual Yugoslav athletes, who participated as independents. At least two of the
banned Yugoslav teams were predicted to be lead medal contenders.
Croatia was allowed to compete at the 1992 Summer Olympics, despite that nation's military
involvement in the Bosnian Civil War. During the 1992 Summer and Winter Olympics, the former
USSR participated in individual and team sports as the Unified Team (with the exception of the
three former Soviet Baltic republics, who competed under their respective nation). With all
this in mind, the ban on team sports from Yugoslavia at the 1992 Summer Olympics, under a
neutral name, appears to be hypocritical and ethically challenged.
BS aside, the reality is that geopolitical clout (in the form of might making right), is
what compels the banning of Yugoslavia, unlike superpowers engaged in behavior which isn't less
egregious. Although a major world power, contemporary Russia lacks the overall geopolitical
influence of the USSR. Historian Stephen Cohen and some others, have noted that post-Soviet
Russia doesn't get the same (for lack of a better word) respect accorded to the USSR. This
aspect underscores how becoming freer, less militaristic and more market oriented doesn't (by
default) bring added goodwill from a good number of Western establishment politicos and the
organizations which are greatly influenced by them.
On the subject of banning Russia from the Olympics, Canadian sports legal politico Dick
Pound, continues to rehash an inaccurate likening with no critical follow-up. (
An exception being yours truly .) Between
2016 and
2019 , Pound references the Olympic banning of South Africa, as a basis for excluding
Russia. South Africa was banned when it had apartheid policies, which prevented that country's
Black majority from competing in organized sports. Russia has a vast multiethnic participation
in sports and other sectors.
As previously noted , the factual premise to formally ban Russia from the Olympics remains
suspect. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is set to review Russia's appeal to have the
recommended WADA ban against Russia overturned, as Western mass media at large and sports
politicos like Pound continue to push for a CAS decision against Russia.
"... Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones. ..."
"... In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US. Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp the working parallels. In general, I can recommend this book as a good introduction on Vladimir Putin, but it's hardly the last word and certainly not the definitive narrative. ..."
Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological
profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their
limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again
and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999
manifesto on his millenial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both
subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these
documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are
padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.
As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the
authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a
doozy:
"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic
and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter
Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."
For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong.
They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold
War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in
fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control
than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II. To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy.
Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior
that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened
their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome
part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which
while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.
I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this
book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian
scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the
opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days. But in ignoring what Cohen has to
say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in
lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.
The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the
writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US
Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen
than they are to Hill and Gaddy.
Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden
motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers'
books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors
never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.
Ultimately, this is an unsatisfying work.
karenann, 2 years ago (Edited)
Kissinger has had the good sense to state that the best hope for peace in the region is to have Ukraine as a totally
neutral country, similar to Finland before the USSR collapsed. The Budapest Memorandum of NATO calls for the full military
integration of Ukraine and Georgia.
As a thought experiment, what if the Soviets undermined the provincial governments of Alberta and British Columbia, and
then wanted to include these governments in the Warsaw Pact? What do you think the reaction of the US would be?
- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research
and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table.
Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him
credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia.
Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic
liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors
Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver
to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents
by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.
Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own
role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian
insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan
Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was
not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on
then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by
Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of
relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the
backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When
he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid
historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for
the same.
The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of
his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us -
our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these
"motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic
hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut
compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David
Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy,
Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes
Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but
rather ongoing and painful ones.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the
authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the
"misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the
"Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out
of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part
of a geo-political manouver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians,
exactly as in the Baltic states.
His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the
authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an
aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial
amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western
pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is
dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian
security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving,
it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie
Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.
In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand
tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on
Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make
him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US.
Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp the working parallels. In general, I can
recommend this book as a good introduction on Vladimir Putin, but it's hardly the last word
and certainly not the definitive narrative.
Anon II, 4 years ago (Edited)
It is refreshing to read something on Russia written by a reviewer who knows what he is talking about. This book is full
of data, but the authors lack any intellectual basis on which to organize it. They are trying to publish a book in which
there will be reader interest, but they really have nothing to say. If you are eager to make an enemy of Russia, this book
will be useful to you. If you are simply trying to understand what is happening, it won't be.
D.B.4 years ago
Thank you for an excellent countervailing perspective!
Stephen Cohen (one of the few pundits who actually knows something about Russia:)
"Almost daily for three years, Democrats and their media have told us very bad things
about Donald Trump's life, character, and presidency. Some of them are true. But in the
process, we have also learned some lamentable, even alarming, things about the Democratic
Party establishment, including self-professed liberals. Consider the following:
The Democratic establishment is deeply and widely imbued with rancid Russophobic
attitudes. Most telling was (and remains) a core "Russiagate" allegation that "Russia
attacked American democracy during the 2016 presidential election" on Trump's behalf -- an
"attack" so nefarious it has often been equated with Pearl Harbor. But there was no "attack"
in 2016, only, as I have previously explained, ritualistic "meddling" of the kind that both
Russia and America have undertaken in the other's elections for decades. Little can be more
phobic than the allegation or belief that one has been "attacked by a hostile" entity. And
yet this myth and its false narrative persist in the Democratic Party's discourse,
campaigning, and fund-raising.
We have also learned that the heads of America's intelligence agencies under President
Obama, especially John Brennan of the CIA and James Clapper, director of National
Intelligence, felt themselves entitled to try to undermine an American presidential candidacy
and subsequent presidency, that of Donald Trump. Early on, I termed this operation
"Intelgate," and it has since been well documented by other writers, including Lee Smith in
his new book. Intel officials did so in tacit alliance with certain leading, and equally
Russophobic, members of the Democratic Party, which had once opposed such transgressions.
This may be the most alarming revelation of the Trump years: Trump will leave power, but
these self-aggrandizing intelligence agencies will remain.
We also learned that, contrary to Democratic dogma, the mainstream "free press" cannot be
fully trusted to readily expose such abuses of power. Indeed, what the mainstream media --
leading national newspapers and two cable news networks, in particular -- chose to cover and
report, and chose not to cover and report, made the abuses and consequences of Russiagate
allegations possible. Even now, exceedingly influential publications such as The New York
Times seem eager to delegitimize the investigation by Attorney General William Barr and his
appointed special investigator John Durham into the origins of Russiagate. Barr's critics
accuse him of fabricating a "conspiracy theory" on behalf of Trump. But the real, or
grandest, conspiracy theory was the Russiagate allegation of "collusion" between Trump and
the Kremlin, an accusation that was -- or should have been -- discredited by the Robert
Mueller report.
And we have learned, or should have learned, that for all the talk by Democrats about
Trump as a danger to US national security, it is their Russiagate allegations that truly
endanger it. Consider two examples. Russia's new "hyper-sonic" missiles, which can elude US
missile-defense systems, make new nuclear arms negotiations with Moscow imperative and
urgent. If only for the sake of his legacy, Trump is likely to want to do so. But even if he
is able to, will Trump be entrusted enough to conduct negotiations as successfully as did his
predecessors in the White House, given the "Putin puppet" and "Kremlin stooge" accusations
still being directed at him?"
The Russia thingie/falsehoods are part of corrupt demrats assault on the US constitution.
They are even now predicting their loss in 2020 due to "interference" and people wanting to
know how corrupt the DNC [front running] select has been!
Demrat allies in the shadow revolving door government of neocon humbug factories are
denouncing Trump for his ignoring their war mongering imperial objects.
[Adding assault to injury? The US Constitution was damning enough on its own. What are
they thinking inside the deep state apparatus? Don't they know that power and privilege is
reserved for holders of wealth by the US Constitution? Who do they think that they are really
working for?]
Friend ilsm may be less nuts than it appears, but friend ilsm is not less incomprehensible
than it appears. Would it be out of place to thank you for ilsm's sake?
Our two-party system was largely useless after FDR, but our two-party system has been
largely destructive since 1968. Let me know if anything really changes.
not that I would be ordinarily predisposed to defend her. The problem with delusions is that
they can easily become self-perpetuating, even easier with the right hand on the tiller.
I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
This is not a story I was told
When all the people are made out of wood
They build their houses of bones
Sail away, Oh sail away
The edge of the world is near
Sail away, Oh sail away from here
I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
All the cigarettes are hand rolled
Nothing is bought and nobody is sold
And everything's made of gold
I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
There a man with wounds I did see
Said: I do not want to escape from reality
I want reality to escape from me
Fiona Hill books does not worth even 5% of any book written by Professor Stephen Cohen. In other words they are pathetic junk.
Of the class that in UK(ream MI6) writes Luke Harding. may be they both have the same handlers. She is just a regular MIC
prostitute, like all neocons.
And Putin is a KGB thug is a terrible. simplistic argument. Pure propaganda. This isn't about either Putin (or Trump)
really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred.
Notable quotes:
"... As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the authors ..."
"... "The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare." ..."
"... For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong. They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly. ..."
"... I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days. ..."
"... The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen than they are to Hill and Gaddy. ..."
"... Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for the same. ..."
"... I rather think Putin grasps these "motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones. ..."
"... A poorly written smear that would make McCarthy blush. Recycled fear for the gullible citizens so desperately uneducated and unread. The Military Industrial Corporatists will pass it around as Bible ..."
Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological
profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their
limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again
and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999
manifesto on his millennial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both
subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these
documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are
padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.
As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the
authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a doozy:
"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic
and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter
Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."
For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong.
They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold
War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in
fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control
than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II.
To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy.
Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior
that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened
their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome
part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which
while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.
I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this
book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian
scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the
opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days.
But in ignoring what Cohen has to
say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in
lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.
The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the
writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US
Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen
than they are to Hill and Gaddy.
Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden
motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers'
books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors
never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.
Unprofessional writing, a profound disappointment. Reads like a high school essay - one
that repeats a single thought over and over, even re-using the same phrases - than a proper
biography. The content feels like it has been skimmed only from public sources. There is no
sign of insight among the authors, nor even a curiosity as to what makes this important
figure unique. One wonders where the interests lie in those who wrote laudative reviews. I am
sad to say that this book is nothing more than a polemic, and moreover one that is repetitive
and boring.
- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research
and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table.
Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him
credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia.
Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic
liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors
Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver
to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents
by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.
Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own
role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian
insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan
Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was
not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on
then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by
Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of
relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the
backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When
he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid
historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for
the same.
The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of
his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us -
our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these
"motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic
hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut
compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David
Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy,
Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes
Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but
rather ongoing and painful ones.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the
authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the
"misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the
"Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out
of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part
of a geo-political maneuver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians,
exactly as in the Baltic states.
His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the
authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an
aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial
amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western
pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is
dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian
security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving,
it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie
Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.
In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand
tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on
Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make
him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US.
Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp
A poorly written smear that would make McCarthy blush. Recycled fear for the gullible
citizens so desperately uneducated and unread. The Military Industrial Corporatists will pass
it around as Bible
The book gives advices what the US officials should say about Russia to advocate their
(US's) dishonest and aggressive policy. See examples of such policy in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Syria and Lybia.
"... Russia hating is the lynchpin of oligarchic deepstate MIC MSM propaganda. Take that away and the fat cats are revealed as the naked face of evil that they are. Hating Russia (and China) supposedly justifies all their crimes. ..."
The transcript of President Trump's July 25 telephone conversation with Ukraine's recently
elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has ignited the usual anti-Trump bashing in American
political-media circles, even more calls for impeachment, with little, if any, regard for the
national security issues involved. Leave aside that Trump should not have been compelled to
make the transcript public and ask: Which, if any, foreign leaders will now feel free to
conduct personal telephone diplomacy with an American president directly or indirectly, of the
kind that helped end the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, knowing that his or her comments might
become known to domestic political opponents? Consider instead only the following undiscussed
issues:
§ Even if former vice president Joseph Biden, who figured prominently in the
Trump-Zelensky conversation, is not the Democratic nominee, Ukraine is now likely to be a
contested, and poisonous, issue in the 2020 US presidential election. How did the United States
become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is
NATO expansion, as some of us who opposed that folly back in the 1990s warned would be the
case, and not only in Ukraine. The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in
2013 -- 14 resulted in the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally
elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass. All
those fateful events infused the Trump-Zelensky talk, if only between the lines.
§ Russia shares centuries of substantial civilizational values, language, culture,
geography, and intimate family relations with Ukraine. America does not. Why, then, is it
routinely asserted in the US political-media establishment that Ukraine is a "vital US national
interest" and not a vital zone of Russian national security, as by all geopolitical reckoning
it would seem to be? The standard American establishment answer is: because of "Russian
aggression against Ukraine." But the "aggression" cited is Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea
and support for anti-Kiev fighters in the Donbass civil war, both of which came after, not
before, the Maidan crisis, and indeed were a direct result of it. That is, in Moscow's eyes, it
was reacting, not unreasonably, to US-led "aggression." In any event, as opponents of eastward
expansion also warned in the 1990s, NATO has increased no one's security, only diminished
security throughout the region bordering Russia.
§ Which brings us back to the Trump-Zelensky telephone conversation. President Zelensky
ran and won overwhelmingly as a peace-with-Moscow candidate, which is why the roughly $400
million in US military aid to Ukraine, authorized by Congress, figured anomalously in the
conversation. Trump is being sharply criticized for withholding that aid or threatening to do
so, including by Obama partisans. Forgotten, it seems, is that President Obama, despite
considerable bipartisan pressure, steadfastly refused to authorize such military assistance to
Kiev, presumably because it might escalate the Russian-Ukrainian conflict (and Russia, with its
long border with Ukraine, had every escalatory advantage). Instead of baiting Trump on this
issue, we should hope he encourages the new peace talks that Zelensky has undertaken in recent
days with Moscow, which could end the killing in Donbass. (For this, Zelensky is being
threatened by well-armed extreme Ukrainian nationalists, even quasi-fascists. Strong American
support for his negotiations with Moscow may not deter them, but it might.)
§ Finally, but not surprisingly, the shadow of Russiagate is now morphing into
Ukrainegate. Trump is also being sharply criticized for asking Zelensky to cooperate with
Attorney General William Barr's investigation into the origins of Russiagate, even though
the role of
Ukrainian-Americans and Ukraine itself in Russiagate allegations against Trump on behalf of
Hillary Clinton in 2016 is now well-documented
.
We need to know fully the origins of Russiagate, arguably the worst presidential scandal in
American history, and if Ukrainian authorities can contribute to that understanding, they
should be encouraged to do so. As I've argued repeatedly, fervent anti-Trumpers must decide
whether they loathe him more than they care about American and international security. Imaging,
for example, a Cuban missile -- like crisis somewhere in the world today where Washington and
Moscow are militarily eyeball-to-eyeball, directly or through proxies, from the Baltic and the
Black Seas to Syria and Ukraine. Will Trump's presidential legitimacy be sufficient for him to
resolve such an existential crisis peacefully, as President John F. Kennedy did in 1962?
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York
University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book War
With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and
in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now in
their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com.
Trump is an agent of the Deep State, playing good cop to the bad cop Deep State. I have been
saying this since mid April 2017. His multitude of actions belie his promises. Trump is a
quisling to his supporters.
Here is an excellent article that comports with my view of Trump.
I am puzzled why Cohen is permitted to publish in the Nation. Is it due to his marriage
to its publisher or to the magazine's remnant infatuation with the Soviet state? Just
asking.
The whole situation is a rather ironic
Prof. Cohen is certainly one of America's most eminent Russia scholars, and I think that
for decades he was regarded as one of the most left-leaning ones, regularly denounced for his
leftism by all the Neocons and other rightwingers. I remember I used to see him on the PBS
Newshour, sometimes paired with a conservative critic of the Soviets. I'd guess that past
history plus being married to the publisher of The Nation is what gives him his
residual foothold there.
I'd suspect that if someone had told him a couple of decades ago that by the late 2010s
he'd be blacklisted from the MSM and denounced as a "Russian agent," he probably would have
been greatly saddened at the disheartening turn in American society, but not totally shocked.
He probably would have regarded such a scenario as having a 10% possibility.
But if someone would have told him that the people denouncing and blacklisting him would
have been the *liberal Democrats* and some of their most "excitable" elements would be
accusing him of being a "Neo-Nazi White Supremacist Russian Agent" he would have thought the
entire country had gone on LSD.
It's sad that our entire country has gone on LSD
The whole situation is actually a perfect parallel to the various past American purges
I've often covered in my articles:
Russia is the excuse for US actions in the Ukraine as it was in the ME.
What is America without a big bad boogeyman like Russia?.
Certainly not a “Superpower’ defending the world.
Without enemies like Russia we would be nothing but big rich country.
And all the Neos and Zios and politicians would have to use Viagra instead of war to squirt
out their poison.
A lot of countries like the Ukraine have gotten a lot of US taxpayer money by
‘standing up to a Russian takeover’….and are laughing all the way to
their bank.
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine’s torturous and famously
corrupt politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in
the target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs
of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes
to mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump
said to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is
the exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption
can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of
other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
It is more than ironic that the Dems (and their like-minded cronies in Big Media) are up in
arms over Trump’s attempt in find ‘dirt’ about Joe Biden when the
‘dirt’ looks and smells like actual corruption. Have laws been broken? Was
Biden selling influence through his son? Stranger things have happened. At the very least,
it looks as though Joe Biden crossed an ethical line. This will likely cost him the
nomination.
Similarly, the news media should–if it was doing its job–pursue leads that
would help find the source behind the missing server and the Fake News that helped justify
the toxic and duplicitous ‘Russiagate’ investigation. But they’d rather
pursue Trump instead. I have never witnessed a more partisan and bloodthirsty Fourth
Estate.
Why is the media so utterly uninterested in finding out who/how the fake
Putin-Trump ‘conspiracy’ was cooked up in the first place? Doesn’t it
make sense the Trump would want to find out more? Justice demands it. False intelligence
can sow chaos and start wars.
Consider, for instance, the manufactured lies (Saddam’s phantom WMD, links to 911,
etc) that were used to justify Zio-America’s annihilation of Iraq. What intelligence
agency cooked up these falsehoods? Who spoon-fed these fairy tales to G.W. Bush and Colin
Powell?
Not only have these questions never been answered, they are seldom even asked! The Deep
State has gone rogue. And Big Media is covering it up.
This whole ridiculous drama may profit the Dem’s in the longer term — that is,
by removing that corrupt, dementia ridden nit-wit Biden from the presidential
competition.
As president, Biden would be a greater sock puppet than even GWB…of course,
“sock puppet” maybe just what the Dem’s want….
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with inevitable
impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
@Ron Unz Thanks to Tucker Carlson’s show, some folks on the left like Cohen, Mate
and Greenwald, are more likely to get air time on Fox News than MSNBC and CNN.
The current CIA talking point is that it is illegal for the President to seek foreign
assistance for his campaign. One might also slant it that the President of the United
States has an obligation to the people who elected him to require an allied, friendly
government to reopen the investigation of Biden because there is adequate reason to suspect
that the Democrats are running yet another corrupt criminal for President. Incidentally,
this puts Zelensky in a very awkward position, as one of the backers of his transition from
sitcom star to President of Ukraine was a principal in Burisma
It is not the threat of impeachment that will energize Trump’s base; it is the
grotesque, constant character assassination in the (largely CIA manipulated) media that
will return him to the White House. The American people have a sense of fairness. They have
always been of better character than the reprobates we are allowed to vote for. Whatever
happened to trusting the democratic process, instead of using intelligence assets to
engineer domestic regime change?
History is not made by nice guys. Trump has torn a big hole in the tissue of lies about
what this country is and what it stands for, and that is too much for those who make their
living deceiving us.
Russia hating is the lynchpin of oligarchic deepstate MIC MSM propaganda. Take that
away and the fat cats are revealed as the naked face of evil that they are. Hating Russia
(and China) supposedly justifies all their crimes.
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country’s constitutionally elected president
Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment — none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) — how fucking hypocritical is it
to presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? — none of
it would have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
"... It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1 threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent accusation. ..."
"... Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the election? ..."
"... Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996. ..."
"... Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began -- by whom, when, and why. ..."
"... Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? ..."
"... the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely culprits. ..."
"... First and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in Russiagate.) ..."
"... At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy. ..."
It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic
allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then
president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016
presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1
threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent
accusation.
Even leaving aside the misperception
that Russia is the primary threat to America in world affairs, no aspect of this allegation has
turned out to be true, as should have been evident from the outset. Major aspects of the now
infamous Steele Dossier, on which much of the allegation was based, were themselves not merely
"unverified" but plainly implausible.
Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of
international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or
control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning
anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the
election? Nonetheless, the American mainstream media and other important elements of the
US political establishment relied on Steele's allegations for nearly three years, even
heroizing him -- and some still do, explicitly or implicitly.
Not surprisingly, former special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of "collusion"
between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. No credible evidence has been produced that
Russia's "interference" affected the result of the 2016 presidential election in any
significant way. Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital
Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than
President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the
reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996.
Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political
life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for
Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed
people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began
-- by whom, when, and why.
Officially, at least in the FBI's version, its operation "Crossfire Hurricane," the
counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign that began in mid-2016 was due to
suspicious remarks made to visitors by a young and lowly Trump aide, George Papadopoulos. This
too is not believable, as I pointed out previously .
Most of those visitors themselves had ties to Western intelligence agencies. That is, the young
Trump aide was being enticed, possibly entrapped, as part of a larger intelligence operation
against Trump. (Papadopoulos wasn't the only Trump associate targeted, Carter Page being
another.)
But the question remains: Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems
clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? A reflexive answer
might be because candidate Trump promised to "cooperate with Russia," to pursue a
pro-détente foreign policy, but this was hardly a startling, still less subversive,
advocacy by a would-be Republican president. All of the major pro-détente episodes in
the 20th century had been initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and
Reagan.
So, again, what was it about Trump that so spooked the spooks so far off their rightful
reservation and so intrusively into American presidential politics? Investigations being
overseen by Attorney General William Barr may provide answers -- or not. Barr has already
leveled procedural charges against James Comey, head of the FBI under President Obama and
briefly under President Trump, but the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having
initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a
president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and
Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely
culprits.
The FBI is no longer the fearsome organization it once was and thus not hard to investigate,
as Barr has already shown. The others, particularly the CIA, are a different matter, and Barr
has suggested they are resisting. To investigate them, particularly the CIA, it seems, he has
brought in a veteran prosecutor-investigator, John Durham.
Which raises other questions. Are Barr and Durham, whose own careers include associations
with US intelligence agencies, determined to uncover the truth about the origins of Russiagate?
And can they really do so fully, given the resistance already apparent? Even if so, will Barr
make public their findings, however damning of the intelligence agencies they may be, or will
he classify them? And if the latter, will President Trump use his authority to declassify the
findings as the 2020 presidential election approaches in order to discredit the role of Obama's
presidency and its would-be heirs?
Equally important perhaps, how will mainstream media treat the Barr-Durham investigation and
its findings? Having driven the Russiagate narrative for so long and so misleadingly -- and
with liberals perhaps finding themselves in the incongruous position of defending rogue
intelligence agencies -- will they credit or seek to discredit the findings?
It is true, of course, that Barr and Durham, as Trump appointees, are not the ideal
investigators of Intel misdeeds in the Russiagate saga. Much better would be a truly
bipartisan, independent investigation based in the Senate, as was the Church Committee of the
mid-1970s, which exposed and reformed (it thought at the time) serious abuses by US
intelligence agencies. That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable,
and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.
There are also, however, the ongoing and upcoming Democratic presidential debates. First
and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not
about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in
Russiagate.)
At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked
about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would
do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host ofThe John Batchelor Show
. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are atTheNation.com .
Stephen
F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New
York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book
War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback
and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now
in their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com .
STEPHEN COHEN: I'm not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The European Commission, if you're talking about the 2008 war,
the European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia, which was backed by the United States, fighting with an
American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that he
began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin, which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and
Obama's best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country
would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what
essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia.
So that- Russia didn't begin that war. And it didn't begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by [continents], the overthrow
of the Ukrainian president in [20]14 after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to happen. And I think it happened
within 36 hours. The Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and betrayed. They use this word, predatl'stvo,
betrayal, about American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when it wasn't just President George Bush, all the documents have
been published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union
that under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two
inches to the east.
Now NATO is sitting on Russia's borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So Russians aren't fools, and they're good-hearted, but they
become resentful. They're worried about being attacked by the United States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily,
we are under attack by the United States. And this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap that is being put out that Russia
somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been sleeping. I didn't see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is reckless, dangerous,
warmongering talk. It needs to stop. Russia has a better case for saying they've been attacked by us since 1991. We put our military
alliance on the front door. Maybe it's not an attack, but it looks like one, feels like one. Could be one.
Real politik. Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Don't start fights in the first place. The idea that American leadership
is any better than mid-Victorian imperialism, is laughable.
AARON MATE: We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the richest person in the world as a result of his entanglement
with the very corruption of Russia you're speaking about
Few appear to be aware that Bill Browder is single-handedly responsible for starting, and spreading, the rumor that Putin's
net worth is $200 billion (for those who are unfamiliar with Browder, I highly recommend watching Andrei Nekrasov's documentary
titled " The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes "). Browder
appears to have first
started this rumor early in 2015 , and has repeated it ad nauseam since then, including in
his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 . While Browder has always framed the $200 billion figure as his own
estimate, that subtle qualifier has had little effect on the media's willingness to accept it as fact.
Interestingly, during the press conference at the Helsinki Summit, Putin claimed Browder sent $400 million of ill-gotten gains
to the Clinton campaign. Putin
retracted the statement and claimed to have misspoke a week or so later, however by that time the $400 million figure had
been cited by numerous media outlets around the world. I think it is at least possible that Putin purposely exaggerated the amount
of money in question as a kind of tit-for-tat response to Browder having started the rumor about his net worth being $200 billion.
The stories I saw said there was a mistranslation -- but that the figure should have $400 thousand and not $400 million. Maybe
Putin misspoke, but the $400,000 number is still significant, albeit far more reasonable.
Putin never was on the Forbes list of billionaires, btw, and his campaign finance statement comes to far less. It never seems
to occur to rabid capitalists or crooks that not everyone is like them, placing such importance on vast fortunes, or want to be
dishonest, greedy, or power hungry. Putin is only 'well off' and that seems to satisfy him just fine as he gets on with other
interests, values, and goals.
Yes, $400,000 is the revised/correct figure. My having written that "Putin retracted the statement" was not the best choice
of phrase. Also, the figure was corrected the day after it was made, not "a week or so later" as I wrote in my previous comment.
From the Russia Insider link:
Browder's criminal group used many tax evasion methods, including offshore companies. They siphoned shares and funds from
Russia worth over 1.5 billion dollars. By the way, $400,000 was transferred to the US Democratic Party's accounts from these
funds. The Russian president asked us to correct his statement from yesterday. During the briefing, he said it was $400,000,000,
not $400,000. Either way, it's still a significant amount of money.
There's something weird about the anti-Putin hysteria. Somehow, many, many people have come to believe they must demonstrate
their membership in the tribe by accepting completely unsupported assertions that go against common sense.
In a sane world we the people would be furious with the Clinton campaign, especially the D party but the R's as well, our media
(again), and our intel/police State (again). Holding them all accountable while making sure this tsunami of deception and lies
never happens again.
It's amazing even in time of the internetz those of us who really dig can only come up with a few sane voices. It's much worse
now in terms of the numbers of sane voices than it was in the run up to Iraq 2.
Regardless of broad access to far more information in the digital age, never under estimate the self-preservation instinct
of American exceptionalist mythology. There is an inverse relationship between the decline of US global primacy and increasingly
desperate quest for adventurism. Like any case of addiction, looking outward for blame/salvation is imperative in order to prevent
the mirror of self-reflection/realization from turning back onto ourselves.
we're not to believe we're not supposed to believe we're supposed to believe
Believe whatever you want, however your comment gives the impression that you came to this article because you felt the need
to push back against anything that does not conform to the liberal international order's narrative on Putin and Russia, rather
than "with an eagerness to counterbalance the media's portrayal of Putin". WRT to whataboutism, I like
Greenwald's definition of the term :
"Whataboutism": the term used to bar inquiry into whether someone adheres to the moral and behavioral standards they seek
to impose on everyone else. That's its functional definition.
aye. I've never seen it used by anyone aside from the worst Hill Trolls.
Indeed, when it was first thrown at me, I endeavored to look it up, and found that all references to it were from Hillaryites
attempting to diss apostates and heretics.
The degree of consistency and or lack of hypocrisy based on words and actions separates US from Russia to an astonishing level.
That is Russia's largest threat to US, our deceivers. The propaganda tables have turned and we are deceiving ourselves to points
of collective insanity and warmongering with a great nuclear power while we are at it. Warmongering is who we are and what we
do.
Does Russia have a GITMO, torture Chelsea Manning, openly say they want to kill Snowden and Assange? Is Russia building up
arsenals on our borders while maintaining hundreds of foreign bases and conducting several wars at any given moment while constantly
threatening to foment more wars? Is Russia dropping another trillion on nuclear arsenals? Is Russia forcing us to maintain such
an anti democratic system and an even worse, an entirely hackable electronic voting system?
You ready to destroy the world, including your own, rather than look in the mirror?
You're talking about extending Russian military power into Europe when the military spending of NATO Europe alone exceeds Russia's
by almost 5-1 (more like 12-1 when one includes the US and Canada), have about triple the number of soldiers than Russia has,
and when the Russian ground forces are numerically smaller than they have been in at least 200 years?
" to put their self-interests above those of their constituents and employees, why can't we apply this same lens to Putin and
his oligarchs?"
The oligarchs got their start under Yeltsin and his FreeMarketDemocraticReformers, whose policies were so catastrophic that
deaths were exceeding births by almost a million a year by the late '90s, with no end in sight. Central to Yeltsin's governance
was the corrupt privatization, by which means the Seven Bankers came to control the Russian economy and Russian politics.
Central to Putin's popularity are the measures he took to curb oligarchic predation in 2003-2005. Because of this, Russia's
debt:GDP ratio went from 1.0 to about 0.2, and Russia's demographic recovery began while Western analysis were still predicting
the death of Russia.
So Putin is the anti-oligarch in Russian domestic politics.
I know of many people who sacrifice their own interests for those of their children (over whom they have virtually absolute
power), family member and friends. I know of others who dedicate their lives to justice, peace, the well being of their nation,
the world, and other people -- people who find far greater meaning and satisfaction in this than in accumulating power or money.
Other people have their own goals, such as producing art, inventing interesting things, reading and learning, and don't care two
hoots about power or money as long as their immediate needs are met.
I'm cynical enough about humans without thinking the worst of everyone and every group or culture. Not everyone thinks only
of nails and wants to be hammers, or are sociopaths. There are times when people are more or less forced into taking power, or
getting more money, even if they don't want it, because they want to change things for the better or need to defend themselves.
There are people who get guns and learn how to use them only because they feel a need for defending themselves and family but
who don't like guns and don't want to shoot anyone or anything.
There are many people who do not want to be controlled and bossed around, but neither want to boss around anyone else. The
world is full of such people. If they are threatened and attacked, however, expect defensive reactions. Same as for most animals
which are not predators, and even predators will generally not attack other animals if they are not hungry or threatened -- but
that does not mean they are not competent or can be dangerous.
Capitalism is not only inherently predatory, but is inherently expansive without limits, with unlimited ambition for profits
and control. It's intrinsically very competitive and imperialist. Capitalism is also a thing which was exported to Russia, starting
soon after the Russian Revolution, which was immediately attacked and invaded by the West, and especially after the fall of the
Soviet Union. Soviet Russia had it's own problems, which it met with varying degrees of success, but were quite different from
the aggressive capitalism and imperialism of the US and Europe.
The pro-Putin propaganda is pretty interesting to witness, and of course not everything Cohen says is skewed pro-Putin – that's
what provides credibility. But "Putin kills everybody" is something NOBODY says (except Cohen, twice in one interview) – Putin
is actually pretty selective of those he decides to have killed. But of course, he doesn't kill anyone, personally – therefore
he's an innocent lamb, accidentally running Russia as a dictator.
The most recent dictator in Russian history was Boris Yeltsin, who turned tanks on his legislature while it was in the legal
and constitutional process of impeaching him, and whose policies were so catastrophic for Russians (who were dying off at the
rate of 900k/yr) that he had to steal his re-election because he had a 5% approval rating.
But he did as the US gvt told him, so I guess that makes him a Democrat.
Under Putin Russia recovered from being helpless, bankrupt & dying, but Russia has an independent foreign policy, so that makes
Putin a dictator.
"Does any sane person believe that there will ever be a Putin-signed contract provided as evidence? Does any sane person believe
that Putin actually needs to "approve" a contract rather than signaling to his oligarch/mafia hierarchy that he's unhappy about
a newspaper or journalist's reporting?"
Why do you think Putin even needs, or feels a need, to have journalists killed in the first place? I see no evidence to support
this basic assumption.
The idea of Russia poised to attack Europe is interesting, in light of the fact that they've cut their military spending by
20%. And even before that the budgets of France, Germany, and the UK combined well exceeded that of Russia, to say nothing of
the rest of NATO or the US.
Putin's record speaks for itself. This again points to the absurdity of claiming he's had reporters killed: he doesn't need
to. He has a vast amount of genuine public support because he's salvaged the country and pieced it back together after the pillaging
of the Yeltsin years. That he himself is a corrupt oligarch I have no particular doubt of. But if he just wanted to enrich himself,
he's had a very funny way of going about it. Pray tell, what are these 'other interpretations'?
"The US foreign policy has been disastrous for millions of people since world war 2. But Cohen's arguments that Russia isn't
as bad as the US is just a bunch of whattaboutism."
What countries has the Russian Federation destroyed?
Here is a fascinating essay ["Are We Reading Russia Right?"] by Nicolai N. Petro who currently holds the Silvia-Chandley Professorship
of Peace Studies and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island. His books include, Ukraine
in Crisis (Routledge, 2017), Crafting Democracy (Cornell, 2004), The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard, 1995), and Russian
Foreign Policy, co-authored with Alvin Z. Rubinstein (Longman, 1997). A graduate of the University of Virginia, he is the recipient
of Fulbright awards to Russia and to Ukraine, as well as fellowships from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the National
Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington,
D.C., and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. As a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, he served as special assistant
for policy toward the Soviet Union in the U.S. Department of State from 1989 to 1990. In addition to scholarly publications
on Russia and Ukraine, he has written for Asia Times, American Interest, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian
(UK), The Nation, New York Times, and Wilson Quarterly. His writings have appeared frequently on the web sites of the Carnegie
Council for Ethics in International Affairs and The National Interest.
Thanks for so much for this. Great stuff. Cohen says the emperor has no clothes so naturally the empire doesn't want him on
television. I believe he has been on CNN one or two times and I saw him once on the PBS Newshour where the interviewer asked skeptical
questions with a pained and skeptical look. He seems to be the only prominent person willing to stand up and call bs on the Russia
hate. There are plenty of pundits and commentators who do that but not many Princeton professors.
It has been said in recent years that the greatest failure of American foreign policy was the invasion of Iraq. I think that
they are wrong. The greatest failure, in my opinion, is to push both China and Russia together into a semi-official pact against
American ambitions. In the same way that the US was able to split China from the USSR back in the seventies, the best option was
for America to split Russia from China and help incorporate them into the western system. The waters for that idea have been so
fouled by the Russia hysteria, if not dementia, that that is no longer a possibility. I just wish that the US would stop sowing
dragon's teeth – it never ends well.
The best option, but the "American exceptionalists" went nuts. Also, the usual play book of stoking fears of the "yellow menace"
would have been too on the nose. Americans might not buy it, and there was a whole cottage industry of "the rising China threat"
except the potential consumer market place and slave labor factories stopped that from happening.
Bringing Russia into the West effectively means Europe, and I think that creates a similar dynamic to a Russian/Chinese pact.
The basic problem with the EU is its led by a relatively weak but very German power which makes the EU relatively weak or controllable
as long as the German electorate is relatively sedate. I think they still need the international structures run by the U.S. to
maintain their dominance. What Russia and the pre-Erdogan Turkey (which was never going to be admitted to the EU) presented was
significant upsets to the existing EU order with major balances to Germany which I always believed would make the EU potentially
more dynamic. Every decision wouldn't require a pilgrimage to Berlin. The British were always disinterested. The French had made
arrangements with Germany, and Italy is still Italy. Putting Russia or Turkey (pre-Erdogan) would have disrupted this arrangement.
The Crimea voted to be annexed by Russia by a clear majority. The US overran Hawaii with total disregard for the wishes of
the native population. Your comparison is invalid.
"Putin's finger prints are all over the Balkan fiasco".How is that with Putin only becoming president in 2000 and the Nato
bombing started way beforehand. It's ridiculous to think that Putin had any major influence at that time as govenor or director
of the domestic intelligence service on what was going during the bombing of NATO on Belgrad. Even Gerhard Schroeder, then chancellor
of the Federal Republic of Germany, admitted in an interview in 2014 with a major German Newspaper (Die Zeit) that this invasion
of Nato was a fault and against international law!
Can you concrete what you mean by "fingerprints" or is this just another platitudes?
I believe that the full and proper name of the psychiatric disorder in question is Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome [PTDS].
Symptoms include:
o Eager and uncritical ingestion and social-media regurgitation of even the most patently absurd MSM propaganda. For example,
the meme that releasing factual information about actual election-meddling (as Wikileaks did about the Dem-establishment's rigging
of its own nomination process in 2016) is a grave threat to American Democracy™;
o Recent-onset veneration of the intelligence agencies, whose stock in trade is spying on and lying to the American people,
spreading disinformation, election rigging, torture and assassination and its agents, such as liar and perjurer Clapper and torturer
Brennan;
o Rehabilitation of horrid unindicted GOP war criminals like G.W. Bush as alleged examples of "norms-respecting Republican
patriots";
o Smearing of anyone who dares question the MSM-stoked hysteria as an America-hating Russian stooge.
"... What is the significance of this story, apart from what it tells us about the graver dangers of the new US-Russian Cold War, which now includes, we are informed, a uniquely fraught "digital Cold War"? Not so long ago, mainstream liberal Democrats, and the Times itself, would have been outraged by revelations that defense and intelligence officials were making such existential policy behind the back of a president. No longer, it seems. There have been no liberal, Democratic, or for the most part any other, mainstream protests, but instead a lawyerly apologia justifying the intelligence-defense operation without the president's knowledge. ..."
"... As I have often emphasized, the long historical struggle for American-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) détente, or broad cooperation, has featured many acts of attempted sabotage on both sides, though most often by US intelligence and defense agencies. ..."
"... Now the sabotaging of détente appears be happening again. As the Times article makes clear, Washington's war party, or perhaps zealous Cold War party, referred to euphemistically by Sanger and Perlroth as "advocates of the more aggressive strategy," is on the move. ..."
"... Détente with Russia has always been a fiercely opposed, crisis-ridden policy pursuit, but one manifestly in the interests of the United States and the world. No American president can achieve it without substantial bipartisan support at home, which Trump manifestly lacks. What kind of catastrophe will it take -- in Ukraine, the Baltic region, Syria, or somewhere on Russia's electric grid -- to shock US Democrats and others out of what has been called, not unreasonably, their Trump Derangement Syndrome, particularly in the realm of American national security? Meanwhile, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently reset its Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight. ..."
Occasionally, a revelatory, and profoundly alarming,
article passes almost unnoticed, even when published on the front page of The New York
Times . Such was the case with
reporting by David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth , bearing the Strangelovian title "U.S.
Buries Digital Land Mines to Menace Russia's Power Grid," which appeared in the print edition
on June 16. The article contained two revelations.
First, according to Sanger and Perlroth, with my ellipses duly noted, "The United States is
stepping up digital incursions into Russia's electric power grid. Advocates of the more
aggressive strategy said it was long overdue " The operation "carries significant risk of
escalating the daily digital Cold War between Washington and Moscow." Though under way at least
since 2012, "now the American strategy has shifted more toward offense with the placement of
potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness
that had never been tried before." At this point, the Times reporters add an Orwellian
touch. The head of the U.S. Cyber Command characterizes the assault on Russia's grid, which
affects everything from the country's water supply, medical services, and transportation to
control over its nuclear weapons, as "the need to 'defend forward,'" because "they don't fear
us."
Nowhere do Sanger and Perlroth seem alarmed by the implicit risks of this "defend forward"
attack on the infrastructure of the other nuclear superpower. Indeed, they wonder "whether it
would be possible to plunge Russia into darkness." And toward the end, they quote an American
lawyer and former Obama official, whose expertise on the matter is unclear, to assure readers
sanguinely, "We might have to risk taking some broken bones of our own from a counter response.
Sometimes you have to take a bloody nose to not take a bullet in the head down the road." The
"broken bones," "bloody nose," and "bullet" are, of course, metaphorical references to the
potential consequences of nuclear war.
The second revelation comes midway in the Times story: "[President] Trump had not
been briefed in any detail about the steps to place 'implants' inside the Russian grid" because
"he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials." (Indeed, Trump issued an
angry tweet when he saw the Times report, though leaving unclear which part of it
most aroused his anger.)
What is the significance of this story, apart from what it tells us about the graver dangers
of the new US-Russian Cold War, which now includes, we are informed, a uniquely fraught
"digital Cold War"? Not so long ago, mainstream liberal Democrats, and the Times itself,
would have been outraged by revelations that defense and intelligence officials were making
such existential policy behind the back of a president. No longer, it seems. There have been no
liberal, Democratic, or for the most part any other, mainstream protests, but instead a
lawyerly apologia justifying the intelligence-defense operation without the president's
knowledge.
The political significance, however, seems clear enough. The leak to the Times and
the paper's publication of the article come in the run-up to a scheduled meeting between
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 meeting in Japan on June
28–29. Both leaders had recently expressed hope for improved US-Russian relations. On May
4, Trump again
tweeted his longstanding aspiration for a "good/great relationship with Russia"; and this
month Putin lamented that relations "
are getting worse and worse " but hoped that he and Trump could move their countries beyond
"the games played by intelligence services."
As I have often emphasized, the long historical struggle for American-Russian (Soviet and
post-Soviet) détente, or broad cooperation, has featured many acts of attempted sabotage
on both sides, though most often by US intelligence and defense agencies. Readers may recall
the Eisenhower-Khrushchev summit meeting that was to take place in Paris in 1960, but which was
aborted by the Soviet shoot-down of a US spy plane over the Soviet Union, an intrusive flight
apparently not authorized by President Eisenhower. And more recently,
the 2016 plan by then-President Obama and Putin for US-Russian cooperation in Syria, which
was aborted by a Department of Defense attack on Russian-backed Syrian troops.
Now the sabotaging of détente appears be happening again. As the Times article
makes clear, Washington's war party, or perhaps zealous Cold War party, referred to
euphemistically by Sanger and Perlroth as "advocates of the more aggressive strategy," is on
the move. Certainly, Trump has been repeatedly thwarted in his previous détente
attempts, primarily by discredited Russiagate allegations that continue to be promoted by the
war party even though they still lack any evidential basis. (It may also be recalled that his
previous summit meeting with Putin was widely and shamefully assailed as "treason" by
influential segments of the US political-media establishment.)
Détente with Russia has always been a fiercely opposed, crisis-ridden policy pursuit,
but one manifestly in the interests of the United States and the world. No American president
can achieve it without substantial bipartisan support at home, which Trump manifestly lacks.
What kind of catastrophe will it take -- in Ukraine, the Baltic region, Syria, or somewhere on
Russia's electric grid -- to shock US Democrats and others out of what has been called, not
unreasonably, their Trump Derangement Syndrome, particularly in the realm of American national
security? Meanwhile, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently reset its Doomsday Clock to two minutes
before midnight.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host of The John Batchelor Show
. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com . Ad Policy Stephen F. Cohen is a
professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton
University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin
& Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook
edition.
The systemwide US Russophobia that reached its nadir with Russiagate has created a "catastrophe" for both domestic politics and
foreign relations that threatens the future of the American system, professor Stephen Cohen
tells RT.
War with Russia could easily break out if the US insists on pursuing the policy of " demonization " that birthed Russiagate instead
of returning to detente and cooperation, New York University professor emeritus of Russian history Stephen Cohen argues on Chris
Hedges' On Contact. While NATO deliberately antagonized post-Soviet Russia by expanding up to its borders, the US deployed missile
defense systems along those borders after scrapping an arms treaty, leaving President Vladimir Putin devoid of " illusions " about
the goodwill of the West – but armed with " nuclear missiles that can evade and elude any missile defense system ."
" Now is the time for a serious, new arms control agreement. What do we get? Russiagate instead ."
Cohen believes the conspiracy theory – which remains front-page news in US media despite being thoroughly discredited, both by
independent investigators and last month by special counsel Robert Mueller's report – is the work of the CIA and its former director,
John Brennan, who are dead set against any kind of cooperation with Russia. Attorney General William Barr, who is investigating
the FBI over how the 2016 counterintelligence probe began, should take a look at Brennan and his agency, Cohen says.
" If our intelligence services are off the reservation to the point that they can first try to destroy a presidential candidate
and then a president we need to know it ," Cohen says.
" This is the worst scandal in American history. It's the worst, at least, since the Civil War ."
And the damage wrought by this " catastrophe " hasn't stopped at the US border.
The idea that Trump is a Russian agent has been devastating to " our own institutions, to the presidency, to our electoral system,
to Congress, to the American mainstream media, not to mention the damage it's done to American-Russian relations, the damage it
has done to the way Russians, both elite Russians and young Russians, look at America today , " Cohen declares.
"Russiagate is one of the greatest new threats to national security. I have five listed in the book. Russia and China aren't
on there. Russiagate is number one."
And the potential damage it could still cause is enormous.
Amazing, 30 million dollars spent for an investigation that produced nothing and some believe that Russiagate is still reality.
This paranoia is unbelievable except for a psychotic public - pathetic.
If the neo-con/Nazi assholes embedded in the M.I.C. and the US government continue down this road of demonizing and antagonizing
Russia it is not going to end well for the people of the US. Putin and the rest of the Russian leadership have made it crystal
clear that they are only going to be pushed so far. The problem is when Russia snaps they are going to do their damdest to try
to cut the head of the snake off in one shot. There's a good chance they could actually pull that off.
"... War With Russia?: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate ..."
"... The relatively obscure Papadopoulos suddenly found himself befriended by apparently influential people he had not previously known, among them Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, and a woman calling herself Azra Turk. What we now know -- and what Papadopoulos did not know at the time -- is that all of them had ties to US and/or UK and Western European intelligence agencies. ..."
"... The important news is Barr's expressed intention to investigate the role of other US intelligence agencies, not just the FBI, which obviously means the CIA when it was headed by John Brennan and Brennan's partner at the time, James Clapper, then director of national intelligence ..."
"... I argued in The Nation , Brennan, not Obama's hapless FBI Director James Comey, was the godfather of Russiagate, a thesis for which more evidence has since appeared . ..."
"... Thus far, Barr has been cautious in his public statements. He has acknowledged there was "spying," or surveillance, on the Trump campaign, which can be legal, but he surely knows that in the case of Papadopoulos (and possibly of General Michael Flynn), what happened was more akin to entrapment, which is never legal. ..."
"... Barr might ask Schumer what he meant and why he felt the need to be the menacing messenger of Intel agencies, wittingly or not ..."
"... But Barr's thorniest problem may be understanding the woeful role of mainstream media in Russiagate. As Lee Smith, who contributed important investigative reporting, has written : "The press is part of the operation, the indispensable part. None of it would have been possible had the media not linked arms with spies, cops, and lawyers to relay a story first spun by Clinton operatives." How does Barr explore this "indispensable" complicity of the media in originating and perpetuating the Russiagate fraud without impermissibly infringing on the freedom of the press? ..."
"... Ideally, mainstream media -- print and broadcast -- would now themselves report on how and why they permitted intelligence officials, through leaks and anonymous sources, and as "opinion" commentators, to use their pages and programming to promote Russiagate for so long, and why they so excluded well-informed, nonpartisan alternative opinions. ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... Such is the seeming panic of the Russiagate media over Barr's investigation, which promises to declassify related documents, that The New York Times ..."
"... Finally, but most crucially, what was the real reason US intelligence agencies launched a discrediting operation against Trump? Was it because, as seems likely, they intensely disliked his campaign talk of "cooperation with Russia," which seemed to mean the prospect of a new US-Russian détente? ..."
"... Nor, it seems clear, did the CIA stop. In March 2018, the current director, Gina Haspel, flatly lied to President Trump about an incident in the UK in order to persuade him to escalate measures against Moscow, which he then reluctantly did. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... "Spygate is the first American scandal in which the government wants the facts published transparently but the media want to cover them up." ..."
The third possible explanation -- one I have termed "Intelgate," and that I explore in my recent book War With Russia?: From Putin
& Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate -- is that US intelligence agencies undertook an operation to damage, if not destroy, first
the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump. More evidence of "Intelgate" has since appeared.
For example, the intelligence community has said it began its investigation in April 2016 because of a few innocuous remarks
by a young, lowly Trump foreign-policy adviser, George Papadopoulos. The relatively obscure Papadopoulos suddenly found himself
befriended by apparently influential people he had not previously known, among them Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer,
and a woman calling herself Azra Turk. What we now know -- and what Papadopoulos did not know at the time -- is that all of them
had ties to US and/or UK and Western European intelligence agencies.
US Attorney General William Barr now proposes to investigate the origins of Russiagate. He has appointed yet another special
prosecutor, John Durham, to do so, but the power to decide the range and focus of the investigation will remain with Barr.
The important
news is Barr's expressed intention to investigate the role of other US intelligence agencies, not just the FBI, which obviously
means the CIA when it was headed by John Brennan and Brennan's partner at the time, James Clapper, then director of national intelligence.
As I argued in The Nation , Brennan, not Obama's hapless FBI Director James Comey, was the godfather of Russiagate, a thesis
for which
more evidencehas since appeared . We should hope
that Barr intends to exclude nothing, including the two foundational texts of the deceitful Russiagate narrative: the Steele Dossier
and, directly related, the contrived but equally ramifying Intelligence Community Assessment of January 2017. (Not coincidentally,
they were made public at virtually the same time, inflating Russiagate into an obsessive national scandal.)
Thus far, Barr has been cautious in his public statements. He has acknowledged there was "spying," or surveillance, on the
Trump campaign, which can be legal, but he surely knows that in the case of Papadopoulos (and possibly of General Michael Flynn),
what happened was more akin to entrapment, which is never legal. Barr no doubt also recalls, and will likely keep in mind,
the astonishing warning Senator Charles Schumer issued to President-elect Trump in January 2017: "Let me tell you, you take
on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you." (Indeed, Barr might ask Schumer what
he meant and why he felt the need to be the menacing messenger of Intel agencies, wittingly or not .)
But Barr's thorniest problem may be understanding the woeful role of mainstream media in Russiagate. As Lee Smith, who contributed
important investigative reporting,
has
written : "The press is part of the operation, the indispensable part. None of it would have been possible had the media not
linked arms with spies, cops, and lawyers to relay a story first spun by Clinton operatives." How does Barr explore this "indispensable"
complicity of the media in originating and perpetuating the Russiagate fraud without impermissibly infringing on the freedom of
the press?
Ideally, mainstream media -- print and broadcast -- would now themselves report on how and why they permitted intelligence
officials, through leaks and anonymous sources, and as "opinion" commentators, to use their pages and programming to promote Russiagate
for so long, and why they so excluded well-informed, nonpartisan alternative opinions. Instead, they have almost unanimously
reported and broadcast negatively, even antagonistically, about Barr's investigation, and indeed about Barr personally. (
The Washington Post even found a way to print this: "William Barr looks like a toad ")
Such is the seeming panic of the Russiagate media over Barr's investigation, which promises to declassify related documents,
that
The New York Times again trotted out its
easily debunked fiction
that public disclosures will endanger a purported US informant, a Kremlin mole, at Putin's side.
Finally, but most crucially, what was the real reason US intelligence agencies launched a discrediting operation against
Trump? Was it because, as seems likely, they intensely disliked his campaign talk of "cooperation with Russia," which seemed to
mean the prospect of a new US-Russian détente? Even fervent political and media opponents of Trump should want to know who
is making foreign policy in Washington. The next intel target might be their preferred candidate or president, or a foreign policy
they favor.
Nor, it seems clear, did the CIA stop. In March 2018, the current director, Gina Haspel, flatly lied to President Trump about
an incident in the UK in order to persuade him to escalate measures against Moscow, which he then reluctantly did.Several
non–mainstream
media outlets have reported the true story. Typically, The New York Times , on April 17 of this year,
reported it without correcting
Haspel's falsehood.
We are left, then, with this paradox, formulated in a tweet on May 24 by the British journalist John O'Sullivan: "Spygate
is the first American scandal in which the government wants the facts published transparently but the media want to cover them up."
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host ofThe John Batchelor Show. Now in their sixth year, previous installments
are atTheNation.com.
It is true that "Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent political
scandal in modern American history."
Notable quotes:
"... But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. ..."
"... A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela, where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America's neighborhood, ignoring, of course, Washington's deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington against violating Venezuela's sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow policy circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and Russia (then Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war. ..."
"... To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary on the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting confrontation in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no applause, only condemnation. ..."
"... Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk. Swalwell was sure it meant that Trump "acts on their behalf," that he "is putting the Russians' interests ahead of the United States' interests." (Voters may wonder if these candidates and quite a few others who continue to promote extremist Russiagate allegations are emerging American statesmen.) ..."
"... Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through America's politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that Russiagate is actually Intelgate . If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at the creation, though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan and intelligence overlord James Clapper. ..."
"... Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr's declaration that US intelligence agencies resorted to "spying" on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan's CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment operation against members of the campaign.) Comey warned Barr that he will discover that Trump "has eaten your soul." ..."
"... It would be more accurate to say -- and certainly more important -- that baseless Russiagate allegations are eating America's national security. ..."
"... That, doc, is the raison d'etre of Russiagate. That's how far this coup d'etat in Washington has gotten. The showrunners/secret coupsters finally going public with the previously surmised fact that they, not Trump, are running the show and that DJT is just their official tweetsman. ..."
"... So fake news and fake collusion now rule the country? NOT! The President has more power now then he had prior to the Mueller Report being released, the report shows clear obstruction from the Mueller team as they failed to do the basics in investigation, ..."
"... the Mainstream Media has become a threat to democracy and the number one enemy of the American People while "endangering national security" for us all. ..."
"... The mainstream media is a wholly controlled subsidiary of the Military-Industrial complex, via secret government programs such as Operation Mockingbird and doubtless several others. ..."
If Venezuela becomes a Cuban Missile–like Crisis, will Trump be free to resolve it
peacefully?
Now in its third year, Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent
political scandal in modern American history. It rests on two related core allegations: that
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an "attack on American democracy" during the 2016
presidential campaign in order to put Donald Trump in the White House, and that Trump and his
associates willfully colluded, or conspired, in this Kremlin "attack." As I have argued from
the outset -- see my regular commentaries posted at
TheNation.com and my recent book War With Russia?
-- and as recently confirmed, explicitly and tacitly, by special prosecutor Robert Mueller's
report, there is no factual evidence for either allegation.
Nonetheless, these Russiagate allegations, not "Putin's Russia," continue to inflict grave
damage on fundamental institutions of American democracy. They impugn the integrity of the
presidency and now the office of the attorney general. They degrade the many Democratic members
of Congress who persist in clinging to the allegations and thus the Democratic Party and
Congress. And they have enticed mainstream media into one of the worst episodes of
journalistic malpractice in modern times .
But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by
depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic flexibility
to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. We were given a vivid example in July
2018, when Trump held a summit with the current Kremlin occupant, as every president had done
since Dwight Eisenhower. For that conventional, even necessary, act of diplomacy, Trump was
widely accused of treasonous behavior, a charge that persists. Now we have another alarming
example of this reckless disregard for US national security on the part of Russiagate
zealots.
On May 3, Trump called Putin. They discussed various issues, including the Mueller report.
(As before, Putin had to know if Trump was free to implement any acts of security cooperation
they might agree on. Indeed, the Russian policy elite openly debates this question, many of its
members having decided that Trump cannot cooperate with Russia no matter his intentions.)
A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela,
where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump
administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America's neighborhood,
ignoring, of course, Washington's deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics of
Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington against
violating Venezuela's sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow policy
circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and Russia (then
Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war.
To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian
military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve
it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary on
the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting confrontation
in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no applause, only
condemnation. To take some random examples:
Democratic Representative David Cicilline asked CNN's Chris Cuomo rhetorically on May 3,
"Why does the president give the benefit of doubt to a person who attacked our democracy?"
while assailing Trump for not confronting Putin with the Mueller report.
The same evening, CNN's Don Lemon editorialized on the phone call: "The president of the
United States had just a normal old call with his pal Vladimir Putin. Didn't tell him not to
interfere in the election. Like he did in 2016, like he did in 2018, like we know he is
planning to do again in 2020 . You just don't seem to want us to know exactly what was said .
Nothing to see when the president talks for more than an hour with the leader of an enemy
nation. One that has repeatedly attacked our democracy and will do so again." (Lemon did not
say on what he based the expanded, serial charges against Putin and thus against Trump or his
allegation about the 2018 elections, which congressional Democrats mostly won, or his
foreknowledge about 2020 or generally and with major ramifications why he branded Russia an
"enemy nation.")
We might expect something more exalted from James Risen ,
once a critical-minded investigative reporter, who found it suspicious that "Trump and Putin
were both eager to put the Mueller report behind them," even for the sake of needed
diplomacy.
Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020
Democratic presidential nomination, also
expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk. Swalwell was sure it meant
that Trump "acts on their behalf," that he "is putting the Russians' interests ahead of the
United States' interests." (Voters may wonder if these candidates and quite a few others who
continue to promote extremist Russiagate allegations are emerging American
statesmen.)
Not surprisingly,
a Washington Post opinion writer argued that the phone call meant "Trump is counting on
Russian help to get reelected."
None of these "opinion leaders" mentioned the danger of a US-Russian military confrontation
over Venezuela or elsewhere on the several fraught fronts of the new Cold War. Indeed, retired
admiral James Stavridis, once supreme allied commander of NATO forces and formerly associated
with Hillary Clinton's campaign, all but proposed war on
Russia in retaliation for its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented measures"
such as cyberattacks.
Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through
America's politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan
investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost
certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that Russiagate
is actually Intelgate . If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at the creation,
though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan
and intelligence overlord James Clapper.
Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr's declaration that US intelligence
agencies resorted to "spying" on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what
happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan's CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment operation
against members of the campaign.) Comey warned Barr
that he will discover that Trump "has eaten your soul."
It would be more accurate to say -- and certainly more important -- that baseless
Russiagate allegations are eating America's national security.
President Trump Calls Out FBI Director Christopher Wray: "the director is protecting the
coup gang"
Posted on May 12, 2019 by sundance
This is good to see. Finally President Trump indicates he is well aware of the intents and
motives of FBI Director Christopher Wray covering for the illegal coup effort:
President Trump may have been aware of Chris Wray's corrupt disposition prior to today;
however, this is the first visible indication he understands the internecine organization of
it. Hopefully we can start the countdown clock to Wray's exit.
Next up, Chris Wray's #1 strategic hire, current FBI Legal Counsel Dana Boente.
President Trump Calls Out FBI Director Christopher Wray: 'The FBI Has No Leadership; The
Director is Protecting the Same Gang That Tried to Overthrow the President Through an Illegal
Coup'....
Russiagate deprives ... a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the
diplomatic flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis
That, doc, is the raison d'etre of Russiagate. That's how far this coup d'etat in
Washington has gotten. The showrunners/secret coupsters finally going public with the
previously surmised fact that they, not Trump, are running the show and that DJT is just
their official tweetsman.
Sounds right to me.
would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve it peacefully, as
President John Kennedy did in 1962?
But Trump wouldn't be the one peacefully resolving anything. He was deprived of it by more
important powers that be. So he'll only get an award from the MSM for his
portrayal/impression of a 21st Century American statesman/politician.
Which will set the bar quite high for future Trumps-to-come.
GWB seized all kinds of power after 911, Bill Clinton got big power for Fast Track of WTO
& NAFTA, Presidential Signing Orders or Executive Powers become Increased as I remember
under GWB then expanded under Obama, Bill Clinton took extended time in bombing campaign in
Balkans above congressional war powers act, but GWB seemed to have complete war powers in his
admin, Dirty War Powers included,... Point is that Democrats & Republicans, the Money
Party, the One Party conveniently forget that powers granted to Dems or GOP... are then
available in corrupt universe of USSA...
Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020
Democratic presidential nomination, also
expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk
How will Dims feel when the Next Obama get in and people want to witch hunt all his first
phone calls for foreign leaders?
So fake news and fake collusion now rule the country? NOT! The President has more
power now then he had prior to the Mueller Report being released, the report shows clear
obstruction from the Mueller team as they failed to do the basics in investigation, they
also purposefully ignored the obvious to continue with the fake investigation in order to
impede the President. The President is now more powerful as ever as the slow and methodical
take down of the left deep state continues. In the coming weeks it will become more and more
evident to the masses that the President was clearly correct and the attempted coupe of the
President was real and has failed. The mainstream media will become even less relevant
despite all of their efforts.
Congress will soon have no choice but to act in protecting free
speech and the hand of all the CIA controlled media will be tied and bound for generations to
come...
Everyone saw them except the US genpop. Russia,China,Israeli, UK everyone. Thats what she
was selling is my guess. Prolly had the whole fn country up for sale. Like a ebay for selling
off everything. Cops, judges, senators and congress people. Who is to say they were not just
selling it off by the slice like pizza?
the Mainstream Media has become a threat to democracy and the number one enemy of the
American People while "endangering national security" for us all.
The mainstream media is a wholly controlled subsidiary of the Military-Industrial complex,
via secret government programs such as Operation Mockingbird and doubtless several
others.
It is likely that the MIC, long puppeteered by shadowy financial forces through the
Federal Reserve and Bank of England, is doing everything it can to prevent Trump from
disturbing it's long running plans to encircle and subdue Russia via Mackinder's "Heartland"
theory. Preventing Trump from reaching across the divide to constructively engage with Putin
and Russia to break the economic stranglehold on their country is paramount to their
strategy.
One would be right to wonder why the British government is so intimately engaged in all of
these provocations. Could it be that they fear a loss of power and influence that could
result from a continental Europe more closely aligned with Russian interests? This question
is central to our current dilemma here in the states, unfortunately.
It's absolutely vital that the American people learn of the treachery of the British
elites before it is too late. Perfidious Albion, indeed...
Compared to Nadler, Pelosi, Schiff, Waters, Comey, Hillary, Obama, Mueller, the MSM, CNN,
PMSNBC, and all the rest of the loonatic left, Uncle Vladmmir Putin looks pretty good!
Dasvadaniya comrades!! (of course I am kidding you schmucks!)
"... Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. ..."
"... What we are witnessing now is the almost complete ignorance in the MSM and among people like Clapper about the extraordinary damage done to the Russian economy under Clinton in the 1990s, a story well told by Mr. Cohen in the book "Failed Crusade." The immense hypocrisy of accusing Russia of interference in 2016 leaves me breathless. The US has been interfering in the affairs of every major country on earth, beginning with War of 1812 ..."
"... I recall an interesting comment by Mao Zedong about the Cuban Missile Crisis in which Mao said that Nikita Khrushchev was stupid to put missiles in Cuba and he was a coward to take them out. ..."
"... Based on the recent conversations between Stephen Cohen and John Batchelor, I'll paraphrase Mao's comment to say that the intelligence agencies were stupid to originate Russiagate and the Democrats and their media allies are cowards not to stop it. ..."
"... Pompous comes out and says the US is back and we're a force for good. This in the face of widespread destruction all over the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of dead, the creation of numerous groups of crazy zealots that we created, cultivated, and supported to be our proxies in the overthrow of elected governments. All of that death and destruction, including that perpetrated by our proxies is 100% the fault and responsibility of the United States. But Pompous and the American people in general are so myopic that they don't see all that. Thank you, worthless press. If the press actually told the American people what was being done in their name, I think most of us would be disgusted but they don't. They cheer lead for the beltway and their imperial pretensions. ..."
"... If Clapper and Brennan actually created a sting operation against the Trump Campaign, would you denounce that act? If Obama had approved such an operation, would you believe he was ethically entitled to do such? ..."
N ow in its third year, Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent
political scandal in modern American history. It rests on two related core allegations: that
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an "attack on American democracy" during the 2016
presidential campaign in order to put Donald Trump in the White House, and that Trump and his
associates willfully colluded, or conspired, in this Kremlin "attack." As I have argued from
the outset -- see my regular commentaries posted at
TheNation.com and my recent book War With
Russia? -- and as recently confirmed, explicitly and tacitly, by special prosecutor
Robert Mueller's report, there is no factual evidence for either allegation.
Nonetheless, these Russiagate allegations, not "Putin's Russia," continue to inflict grave
damage on fundamental institutions of American democracy. They impugn the integrity of the
presidency and now the office of the attorney general. They degrade the many Democratic
members of Congress who persist in clinging to the allegations and thus the Democratic Party
and Congress. And they have enticed mainstream media into one of the worst episodes
of journalistic malpractice in modern times .
But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by
depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic
flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. We were given a vivid example
in July 2018, when Trump held a summit with the current Kremlin occupant, as every president
had done since Dwight Eisenhower. For that conventional, even necessary, act of diplomacy,
Trump was widely accused of treasonous behavior, a charge that persists. Now we have another
alarming example of this reckless disregard for US national security on the part of
Russiagate zealots.
On May 3, Trump called Putin. They discussed various issues, including the Mueller report.
(As before, Putin had to know if Trump was free to implement any acts of security cooperation
they might agree on. Indeed, the Russian policy elite openly debates this question, many of
its members having decided that Trump cannot cooperate with Russia no matter his intentions.)
A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela,
where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump
administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America's neighborhood,
ignoring, of course, Washington's deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics
of Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington
against violating Venezuela's sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow
policy circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and
Russia (then Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war.
To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian
military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve
it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary
on the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting
confrontation in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no
applause, only condemnation. To take some random examples:
§ Democratic Representative David Cicilline asked CNN's Chris Cuomo rhetorically on
May 3, "Why does the president give the benefit of doubt to a person who attacked our
democracy?" while assailing Trump for not confronting Putin with the Mueller report.
§ The same evening, CNN's Don Lemon editorialized on the phone call: "The president
of the United States had just a normal old call with his pal Vladimir Putin. Didn't tell him
not to interfere in the election. Like he did in 2016, like he did in 2018, like we know he
is planning to do again in 2020 . You just don't seem to want us to know exactly what was
said . Nothing to see when the president talks for more than an hour with the leader of an
enemy nation. One that has repeatedly attacked our democracy and will do so again." (Lemon
did not say on what he based the expanded, serial charges against Putin and thus against
Trump or his allegation about the 2018 elections, which congressional Democrats mostly won,
or his foreknowledge about 2020 or generally and with major ramifications why he branded
Russia an "enemy nation.")
§ We might expect something more exalted from James Risen ,
once a critical-minded investigative reporter, who found it suspicious that "Trump and Putin
were both eager to put the Mueller report behind them," even for the sake of needed
diplomacy.
§ Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the
2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also
expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk. Swalwell was sure it meant
that Trump "acts on their behalf," that he "is putting the Russians' interests ahead of the
United States' interests." (Voters may wonder if these candidates and quite a few others who
continue to promote extremist Russiagate allegations are emerging American statesmen.)
§ Not surprisingly,
a Washington Post opinion writer argued that the phone call meant "Trump is
counting on Russian help to get reelected."
None of these "opinion leaders" mentioned the danger of a US-Russian military
confrontation over Venezuela or elsewhere on the several fraught fronts of the new Cold War.
Indeed, retired admiral James Stavridis, once supreme allied commander of NATO forces and
formerly associated with Hillary Clinton's campaign, all but proposed war on
Russia in retaliation for its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented
measures" such as cyberattacks.
Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through America's
politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan
investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost
certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that
Russiagate is actually Intelgate . If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at
the creation, though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama's CIA
Director John Brennan and intelligence overlord James Clapper.
Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr's declaration that US intelligence
agencies resorted to "spying" on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what
happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan's CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment
operation against members of the campaign.) Comey warned
Barr that he will discover that Trump "has eaten your soul."
It would be more accurate to say -- and certainly more important -- that baseless
Russiagate allegations are eating America's national security.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host
of The John Batchelor Show. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at
TheNation.com .
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton
University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is
available in paperback and in an ebook edition.
Phillip Sawicki says: May 9, 2019 at 7:52 pm
What we are witnessing now is the almost complete ignorance in the MSM and among people
like Clapper about the extraordinary damage done to the Russian economy under Clinton in the
1990s, a story well told by Mr. Cohen in the book "Failed Crusade." The immense hypocrisy of
accusing Russia of interference in 2016 leaves me breathless. The US has been interfering in
the affairs of every major country on earth, beginning with War of 1812.
In case people have
forgotten, The US sought to annex Canada. The Canadians resisted, and so then the US set up a
false flag attack in 1845 to start the Mexican-American War. Hundreds of interventions in
other countries, but if someone is alleged to have done so to us, it's a capital crime. What
arrogance!
Victor Sciamarelli says: May 9, 2019 at 4:17 pm
I recall an interesting comment by Mao Zedong about the Cuban Missile Crisis in which Mao
said that Nikita Khrushchev was stupid to put missiles in Cuba and he was a coward to take
them out.
Based on the recent conversations between Stephen Cohen and John Batchelor, I'll paraphrase
Mao's comment to say that the intelligence agencies were stupid to originate Russiagate and
the Democrats and their media allies are cowards not to stop it.
Another point is that the downside of the policy elites' belief in "American exceptionalism"
is that it is also a trap. They claim our "indispensable nation" rests upon values and
principles such as the rule of law, respect for human rights, and freedom of speech, even
though reality often tells us something different.
Thus, if Putin is a thug, if not a murderer, who attacked the US, undermined our democracy,
and is an autocrat who cares nothing about our values and principles, then what place is
there for diplomacy because you can't negotiate or compromise our immutable principles and
values.
Another observation is we often hear the statement that, "All options are on the table." This
sounds tough to an American mind because it includes nuclear weapons. All options means all
options. Nonetheless, someone else might interpret this to mean you are not confident or
certain that your conventional forces are capable of doing the mission and you are more
likely or willing to resort to a nuclear weapon. This can make any confrontation whether in
Venezuela, Ukraine, Syria, or Iran more dangerous that it needs to be.
In addition, Trump has sent an aircraft carrier group to the Middle East. The Guardian on May
6, 2019, stated that according to one report, information passed on by Israeli intelligence
contributed to the US threat assessment.
If we are now approaching war based on Israeli intelligence then I think we are also
approaching our Dr. Strangelove moment.
Jeffrey Harrison says: May 9, 2019 at 11:55 am
Arrogance, myopia. Those two words define the US today.
Pompous comes out and says the US is back and we're a force for good. This in the face of
widespread destruction all over the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of dead, the creation
of numerous groups of crazy zealots that we created, cultivated, and supported to be our
proxies in the overthrow of elected governments. All of that death and destruction, including
that perpetrated by our proxies is 100% the fault and responsibility of the United States.
But Pompous and the American people in general are so myopic that they don't see all that.
Thank you, worthless press. If the press actually told the American people what was being
done in their name, I think most of us would be disgusted but they don't. They cheer lead for
the beltway and their imperial pretensions.
This Stavridis bozo is a prime example. "all but proposed war on Russia in retaliation for
its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented measures" such as cyber attacks." I
realize that we are in a post proof world where any claim, no matter how inane, is
automatically taken as proven. No actual proof required. The "attack on our democracy" is
based on this totally bogus claim (never proven) that Russia hacked into the DNC's e-mails
(on a server that no law enforcement agency ever inspected to prove the claim of hacking)
that undermined our democracy by revealing how corrupt and slimy the DNC actually is. All the
while we're so myopic that we don't see the Republican party destroying our democracy from
within with voter ID requirements for a non-existent problem, gerrymandering themselves into
a permanent majority of a minority, voter suppression schemes such as purging voter rolls,
closing polling places, and generally making it difficult for people to vote.
But this Stavridis bozo wasn't done yet. The Russians he claims perpetrated unprecedented
measures such as cyber attacks. Really? The only cyber attacks that I'm actually aware of in
the US were actually perpetrated by the Department of Homeland Security who was playing
bureaucratic turf games. The admiral's ignorance is in full display when he forgets the
STUXTNET worm that absolutely was a cyber attack on Iran by the US and Israel, and that the
NSA hacked the personal cell phone of Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister of Germany, and the
trick revealed by Ed Snowden that the NSA would open computer boxes destined for certain
countries and install chips that would allow us to control the server, or that the only known
backdoor in a piece of Hauwei equipment was installed there by the NSA.
I'm suspecting that we need to clean up our act a lot more that most of the rest of the
world.
J McCormick says: May 8, 2019 at 11:57 pm
So much scorn heaped on members of the opposition party and the media and what I hear here
is a call for respect for and deference to the office of the presidency.
If there is cause for concern and worry , and I fervently believe that there is , I leave
it to others to offer up what they believe that cause might be.
History records that that the Congress relinquished powers that were properly theirs
(trade, war powers) and now they so far appear impotent in the face of executive overreach
when an effective check on the executive branch is critically needed.
Even if your opinion runs counter to mine I am reasonably certain we agree that
dysfunction and chaos rule the day in Washington and beyond.
Clark Shanahan says: May 9, 2019 at 6:26 pm
"So much scorn heaped on members of the opposition party and the media"
Tell me, J., do you believe Russia is our adversary?
If so, when did they become such?
If Clapper and Brennan actually created a sting operation against the Trump Campaign,
would you denounce that act?
If Obama had approved such an operation, would you believe he was ethically entitled to do
such?
The investigation was weak and biased: the real McCarthyism witch hunt. Mueller Mifsud blunder now will be played by Nunes
and other republicans to the fullest extent possible, althouth this is only a tip of the iceberg of Mueller corruption. Other
parts are too dangerous to expose and will be swiped under the carpet.
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller begins, on Page 1, with this assertion: "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion." Maybe so, but Mueller, who is not averse to editorializing and contextualizing elsewhere in the report, gives readers no historical background or context for this large generalization. ..."
"... Readers might wonder if, had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election, there even would have been a Russiagate and Mueller investigation. ..."
"... Mueller repeatedly attributes to Trump campaign members and Russians who interacted in 2016, potentially in sinister or even criminal ways, a desire for "improved U.S.-Russian relations," for "bringing the end of the new Cold War," for a "new beginning with Russia." ..."
"... As reflected in the text and footnotes, Mueller relies heavily on reports by US intelligence agencies , but without treating the recorded misdeeds of those agencies, particularly the CIA under John Brennan , in promoting the Russiagate saga. ..."
"... Mueller reports that Mifsud "had connections to Russia" (p. 5), although a simple Google search suggests that Mifsud was indeed an "agent" but not a Russian one, as widely alleged in media accounts. ..."
"... Toward the end of the first volume (pp. 144, 146), Mueller produces a truly stunning revelation, though he seems unaware of it. After the 2016 US presidential election, the Kremlin "appeared not to have preexisting contacts with senior officials around the President-Elect." Even more, "Putin spoke of the difficulty faced by the Russian government in getting in touch with the incoming Trump Administration . Putin indicated that he did not know with whom formally to speak and generally did not know the people around the President-Elect." ..."
"... So much for all the shameful Russiagate allegations of Trump-Putin collusion, conspiracy, even treason. Surely it means the United States needs another, different investigation, one into the actual origins and meaning of this fraudulent, corrosive, exceedingly dangerous, and still unending American political scandal. ..."
Special prosecutor Robert S. Mueller III's two-volume
"
Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election "
is not an easy read -- not unlike those manuals that come boxed with "easy to assemble"
multipart children's toys on Christmas Eve. Nonetheless, considering the exceedingly damaging
effects Russiagate has had on America at home and abroad for nearly three years, the report
will long be studied for what it reveals and does not reveal, what it includes and does not
include.
Because of my own special interest in Russia, I read carefully the first volume, which
focuses on that country's purported role in the scandal. I came away with as many questions
about the report as about the role of Moscow and that of candidate and then President Donald
Trump. To note a few:
Mueller begins, on Page 1, with this assertion: "The Russian government interfered in the
2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion." Maybe so, but Mueller, who is
not averse to editorializing and contextualizing elsewhere in the report, gives readers no
historical background or context for this large generalization.
In particular, was the
interference -- or "meddling," as media accounts characterize it -- more or less "sweeping and
systematic" than was Washington's military intervention in the Russian civil war in 1918 or its
very intrusive campaign to re-elect Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996 -- or, on the other
side of the ledger, the role of the Soviet-backed American Communist Party in US politics in
the 20th century? That is, what warranted a special investigation of this episode in
a century of mutual American-Russian interference in the other's politics? Put somewhat
differently: Readers might wonder if, had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election, there even
would have been a Russiagate and Mueller investigation.
It has occasionally been suggested that Russiagate was originated by high-level US
officials who disliked candidate Trump's pledge to "cooperate with Russia." This suspicion
remains unproven, but throughout, Mueller repeatedly attributes to Trump campaign members and
Russians who interacted in 2016, potentially in sinister or even criminal ways, a desire for
"improved U.S.-Russian relations," for "bringing the end of the new Cold War," for a "new
beginning with Russia."
Even Russian President Vladimir Putin is reported to have wanted
"reconciliation between the United States and Russia." (See, for example, pp. 5, 98, 105, 124,
157.) The result is, of course, to discredit America's once-mainstream advocacy of
détente. Mueller even brands American pro-détente views -- as Presidents
Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan held in the 20th century -- as "pro-Russia foreign policy
positions" (p. 102). Does this mean that Americans who hold pro-détente views today, as
I and quite a few others do, are to be investigated for their "contacts" with Russians in
pursuit of better relations? Mueller seems to say nothing to offset this implication, which has
already adversely affected a few Americans mentioned and not mentioned in his report.
As reflected in the text and footnotes, Mueller relies heavily on reports by US intelligence
agencies , but without treating the recorded misdeeds of those agencies, particularly
the CIA under John
Brennan , in promoting the Russiagate saga. He also relies heavily on contemporary media
accounts of Russiagate as it unfolded, but without taking into account their journalistic
malpractices, as abundantly documented by
Matt Taibbi , who equates the malpractice with news reports leading up to the US invasion
of Iraq.
Nor does Mueller consider alternative scenarios and explanations, as any good historical
or judicial investigation must do. For example, he accepts uncritically the Clinton/Democratic
National Committee allegation that Russian agents hacked and disseminated their emails in 2016.
Again, maybe so, but why did he not do his own forensic examination or even mention the
alternative finding by VIPS that they were stolen and leaked by an insider? Why did he not
question Julian Assange, who claimed to know how and through whom the emails reached WikiLeaks?
And how to explain Mueller's minimal interest in the shadowy professor Joseph Mifsud, who
helped entrap George Papadopoulos in London?
Mueller reports that Mifsud "had connections to
Russia" (p. 5), although a simple Google search suggests that Mifsud was indeed an "agent" but
not a Russian one, as widely alleged in media accounts.
Though he may do so in the second volume of the report, Mueller oddly does not focus in
the first volume on the Steele dossier, where it surely belongs as a foundational Russiagate
document and whose anti-Trump "information" is now widely acknowledged to have been "salacious
and unverified." At one point, however, Mueller delivers a telling report: "Trump would not pay
for opposition research" (p. 61). Can this be anything other than a damning, if oblique,
judgment on the Clinton campaign, which is known to have paid for the Steele
dossier?
Toward the end of the first volume (pp. 144, 146), Mueller produces a truly stunning
revelation, though he seems unaware of it. After the 2016 US presidential election, the Kremlin
"appeared not to have preexisting contacts with senior officials around the President-Elect."
Even more, "Putin spoke of the difficulty faced by the Russian government in getting in touch
with the incoming Trump Administration . Putin indicated that he did not know with whom
formally to speak and generally did not know the people around the President-Elect."
So much for all the shameful Russiagate allegations of Trump-Putin collusion, conspiracy,
even treason. Surely it means the United States needs another, different investigation, one
into the actual origins and meaning of this fraudulent, corrosive, exceedingly dangerous, and
still unending American political scandal.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host
of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at
TheNation.com .
"... Great points, Mr. Cohen....this protracted attack on Russia via the phoney "Russiagate" investigation has set back relations with Russia for years to come. ..."
"... That Trump represents a thinking that the post Soviet reality is not of a uni-superpower world, but one of a multi-polar world dominated by US economic empire. ..."
"... After reading "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century" in 2005, I came to the idea that the most dangerous section of the American elite were those that posited this uni-superpower world order idea; ..."
"... The problem is the incorrigible Big C (Capital) that wanted to eat away Russian minerals that Putin stopped in national interest. Any subsequent cooperation from the Russian side was probably was only for strategic cooperation with the U.S. to have world peace. ..."
"... Not a word in Cohen's appraisal about US criminality. Jay was pushing in that direction. I hope they get around to the criminality of the Deep State Mafia. ..."
"... Despite all the chaos and the moral panics that keep rocking the White House, Trump's three National Security Advisors - Flynn, McMaster, Bolton - had one core commonality: they want war with Iran. Watching the sinister neo-con Jim Woolsey betray the frothing neo-con Flynn to Joe Biden was a comedy of neo-con infighting. A major part of Russiagate was the older 'Atlanticist' neo-cons boxing in the boorish 'Trumpist' neo-cons. Whether Atlantic Council or US-homegrown both flavors of neo-conservatism want war with Iran. ..."
PAUL JAY: Welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. I'm Paul
Jay.
And we're continuing our series of discussions with Stephen Cohen. And his biography is down
below the video player, and you really should watch the first few segments anyway and you'll
get where we are. Thanks for joining us again.
STEPHEN COHEN: Thank you.
PAUL JAY: So I've watched several of your interviews. You've done Larry King and
others, and you've been positive about Trump's attitude towards sort of a detente, lowering
tensions with Russia. And in terms of my personal view, I think you're right. I think anything
that lowers tensions between two nuclear powers is a good thing, and I think this
self-righteous American attitude towards Putin and Russia– when you look at the scale of
crimes committed by countries internationally, there is nothing that Russia has done that
compares to the Iraq war, and go on and on with the United States has done, and to have some
self-righteous attitude Two, it's clear it's so hypocritical to worry about political rights in
Russia, because it's clear in terms of U.S. foreign policy if you can ally with Saudi Arabia,
the Israeli occupation, and you name it how many dictators the United States has supported over
the years, it's not about democracy.
So whatever Trump's intent is, I think I agree that this is a good thing. I actually think
Trump framed it quite well himself, where he said, "Russia is not our adversary, they're our
competitor, the way other big capitalist countries are our competitors." I think all that makes
sense. Where I push back is I think you need to add that one of the prime reasons Trump wants
to diminish tensions with Russia–assuming he really does, because some of the people that
work for him, Nikki Haley in the UN and others, have said as outrageous stuff about Russia as
any Democrat has said.
All that being said, I think the Trump presidency is one of the most dangerous presidencies
ever, and he is planning and his whole foreign policy agenda has been regime change in Iran.
And I think that if they don't accomplish that through economic warfare against Iran, with John
Bolton there, the possibility of some kind of at least bombing attack on Iran before 2020 is
very possible. One of the reasons I think he wants to lower tensions with Russia is so he can
go after China. His acting defense secretary justified this new military expenditure, the new
budget, the 765 billion dollar budget, with three words, "China, China, China." Their strategic
vision–and you can see this in Steve Bannon's interviews and language–is diminish
the tensions with Russia, go after Iran and go after China. And I think one needs to say this,
otherwise it kind of looks like Trump is some kind of peacenik. And far from it, I think
they're militarists.
STEPHEN COHEN: Not sure what the question is, though. Is it about–
PAUL JAY: Well, my question is, I think when you are saying positive things about
Trump diminishing tensions with Russia, which I think is correct, but I think you need to add
this guy does not have peaceful intentions, he's very dangerous.
STEPHEN COHEN: I live in a social realm–to the extent that I have any social
life at all anymore– where people get very angry if I say, or anybody says, anything
positive about Donald Trump. When Trump was campaigning in 2016, he said, "I think it would be
great to cooperate with Russia." All of my adult life, my advocacy in American foreign
policy–I've known presidents, the first George Bush invited me to Camp David to consult
with him before he went to the Malta Summit. I've known presidential candidates, Senators and
the rest, and I've always said the same thing. American national security runs through Moscow,
period. Nothing's changed.
In the era of weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear, but primarily nuclear, ever
more sophisticated, the Russians now have a new generation of nuclear weapons–Putin
announced them on March 1, they were dismissed here, but they're real–that can elude any
missile defense. We spent trillions on missile defense to acquire a first strike capability
against Russia. We said it was against or Iran, but nobody believed it. Russia has now thwarted
us; they now have missile defense-evading nuclear weapons from submarines, to aircraft, to
missiles. And Putin has said, "It's time to negotiate an end to this new arms race," and he's
100 percent right. So when I heard Trump say, in 2016, we have to cooperate with Russia, I had
already become convinced–and I spell this out in my new book, War with Russia?–that
we were in a new cold war, but a new cold war more dangerous than the preceding one for reasons
I gave in the book, one of them being these new nuclear weapons.
So I began to speak positively about Trump at that moment–that would have been
probably around the summer of 2016–just on this one point, because none of the other
candidates were advocating cooperation with Russia. And as I told you before, Paul, all my life
I've been a detente guy. Detente means cooperate with Russia. I saw in Trump the one candidate
who said this is necessary, in his own funny language. Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, was
very much a hawk. When she said publicly that Vladimir Putin has no soul, you could not commit
or utter a more supreme statement of anti-diplomacy, and particularly addressing the Russians,
who put a lot of stock in soul. To say somebody has no soul and then go on to equate him with
Hitler, I found that so irresponsible. I didn't vote for Trump, but I did begin to write and
broadcast that this was of vital importance that we have this discussion, that we needed a new
detente because of the new and more dangerous Cold War.
Since he's been president, I think he's been ineffective in regard to pursuing detente with
Russia for a couple of reasons. I think that the people who invented Russiagate were the
enemies of detente, and they piled on. So they've now demonized Russia, they've crippled Trump.
Anything he does diplomatically with Putin is called collusion. No matter what Mueller says,
it's collusion. This is anti-democracy, and detente is pursued through democracy. So whatever
he really wants to do–it's hard to say–he's been thwarted. I think it's also one of
the reasons why he put anti-detente people around him.
PAUL JAY: Why didn't he pull out of the arms treaty?
STEPHEN COHEN: So this is a separate issue now, and a complicated one. We have been
in violation–let's be clear for folks which treaty we're talking about. We're talking
about the so-called Intermediate-Range Treaty. This band of deployment of missiles that could
fly roughly from 500, I think, to 3000 miles, they were exceedingly dangerous. The American
ones have been based in Europe. They were very dangerous because they tested high-alert
systems. They flew low, fast, they could elude radar. They were dangerous. Reagan and Gorbachev
abolished them in 1987, correct? Now, stop and think for a minute, Paul. What Reagan and
Gorbachev did in 1987 was the first ever, ever in history, act of nuclear abolitionism. They
abolished an entire category of nuclear weapons. That was a sacred act. It needed to be
cherished and preserved forever, no matter what difficulties emerged.
But then comes the history, and we need to remember the history. In 2002, the second
President Bush withdrew the United States unilaterally from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty,
correct? Now, this treaty was related, because it forbid the deployment of so-called missile
defense in a way that either side, American or Russian, could think that it had such great
missile defense, it had a first strike capability. And everybody agreed nobody should think
that. Mutually assured destruction had kept us safe in the nuclear age. But if Russia or the
United States gets a first strike capability, then you don't have assured mutual destruction,
and some crazy person might be tempted to risk it. So how did the Russians react to that? They
began to develop–as I said before, when we began to deploy missile defense–a new
generation of weapons. In other words, you're getting this classic action, reaction, action,
reaction that drove the previous nuclear arms race, and now it's happening again.
So that brings us to Trump's decision. We don't know yet where it's going to lead, because
Trump has said we're withdrawing. He said the Russians have been in violation. But in fact,
we've been in violation since we deployed the missile defense systems. Just for the record, by
the way–and professor Theodore Postol at MIT has been very good about this–these
missile defense installations that we've installed around Russia, land, air, and sea, can
actually fire cruise missiles. They are in violation of that Intermediate-Range Treaty, so
we've been in systematic violation. Pushes come to shove, we withdrew, the Russians have now
withdrawn. But Trump has said two things that are interesting and maybe correct, that
technically the treaty was out of date because of the new weaponry. And secondly, who has the
most cruise missiles? China. 30 years ago in 1987, it was only the United States and Russia,
the Soviet Union. But now China, because of its vast regional presence, has all these
intermediate range missiles.
So Trump says offhandedly, maybe in a Tweet, "Have you ever looked at the military budget of
Russia, China, and the United States? It's obscene. We should cut it." What does that mean?
What does that mean? It's a good idea, right? Then he said, "We can't have such a treaty
without China." The Russians know this too, so let us hope that what they're stumbling toward
is a new, modernized intermediate-range ban that would include China. China, however, will
never sign it. But if they begin the negotiations and China doesn't deploy any more during the
negotiations, and the negotiations go on indefinitely, we are safer than we now are. Now, do I
think that Trump is cunning and thought this up? I'm not sure, but he's got China on the mind,
and I don't quite agree with you that–he's got a kind of dualistic attitude toward China.
It's a threat, but every time he makes a new trade deal with China, he brags on it that it's
great for us.
You would agree with that, right? He's always talking about, "We're going to have this
wonderful trade agreement with China, it's going to be so good for us." So in his mind, Trump's
mind, China is kind of potentially–in his businessman mind–this big economic plus
that he alone is going to get right. Let him try.
PAUL JAY: I don't know how much of this policy at all is Trump or not Trump. I think
the brains behind a lot of this policy now is Bolton and some of the other neocon crazies
around him.
STEPHEN COHEN: But Trump has been saying the same thing about cooperating with Russia
long before he took on Bolton. There's two ways to look at this.
PAUL JAY: But his attitude towards China–
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, just stay for one minute on Russia, because the China thing is
worth talking about too. But he says, almost alone, for the first time–how long has it
been since we had a president really pursue detente? It's been a very long time. Obama called
it a reset, but it was fraudulent. It was basically saying to the Russians, "Give us
everything, and we aren't going to give you anything." It was doomed from the beginning. Plus,
they wagered that Putin wouldn't return to the presidency. Do you know, by the way, speaking of
meddling, that Biden went to Moscow and told Putin not to return to the presidency in 2012?
PAUL JAY: No.
STEPHEN COHEN: Wrap your head around that a minute. The vice president of the United
States goes to Moscow and tells Putin, who's now prime minister because he termed out, but he
could return, "We don't think you should return to the presidency." So you know what I'm
wondering, I'm wondering whether Biden's calling up Putin today and asking Putin whether Biden
should get into the presidential race here. I mean, what the hell? What the hell? And we talk
about meddling? So the point about Trump, to finish this, is for the first time in many, many
years, a presidential candidate, one that I didn't vote for and didn't care for, had said it's
necessary to cooperate with Russia.
PAUL JAY: OK, but I've got to contextualize it. Because it's not enough–because
first of all, Trump's a big liar, and everyone, from beginning to end, for real.
STEPHEN COHEN: Politicians lie, Paul. Welcome to the world,
PAUL JAY: No, but I think he lied on Russia.
STEPHEN COHEN: About what?
PAUL JAY: Well, on two things. I think number one–I think two things drove his
Russia–
STEPHEN COHEN: Let me get my word in. Then I'll give it to you, I promise I'll pass
it right to you, because this is going to set you up beautifully. When he said, Trump, 2016,
"It's necessary to cooperate with Russia," there are two ways to interpret that. He was wise
and smart, or the Kremlin had something on him.
PAUL JAY: No, I don't think either of those are true.
STEPHEN COHEN: And then we go straight to Russia.
PAUL JAY: Neither of those are true.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, I'm not saying you say that, but that's the way it was
taken.
PAUL JAY: No, I think there's two things drove the Russia thing. Number one, they
wanted sanctions lifted because Tillerson and the American oil companies, especially Exxon,
wanted a big energy play in Russia, and they needed to lift the sanctions to do it, and
Tillerson was all positioned for it. And if it hadn't been for this whole Russiagate stuff,
they would have sailed along, had a detente, lifted the sanctions, and had a whole realm of new
energy.
STEPHEN COHEN: You mean under Trump.
PAUL JAY: Under Trump. And I think that would have been a good thing. I'm not
critiquing that in the sense that anything that reduces tensions between the United States and
Russia is a good, thing normalizing, even if it's exploitive and ripping off the Russian people
in their oil, I don't care. The nuclear threat is so paramount, anything that reduces those
tensions are good. But these are not peacenik intentions.
STEPHEN COHEN: Where do we disagree? You've lost me.
PAUL JAY: I'm not saying we necessarily disagree on this. The second part of it
is–and this is where I think is the dangerous part. Because I think sometimes when Trump
and Putin get together and talk quietly, part of that conversation could well be about Iran.
Because when they had the first big round of sanctions on Iran, Russia supported them, Russia
came in on it. And if your foreign policy objective–and clearly it is, between whether it
was Flynn, or whether it was Mattis, or whether it was Bolton, all of them are "regime change
in Iran is the prime objective." And if you want to do that, wouldn't you want Russia to at the
very least step back a little bit?
STEPHEN COHEN: I got you now, I see where you're going.
PAUL JAY: Number one. And number two, the big strategic guns are focused on China. So
if you want to focus on China, wouldn't it be nice to have a strategic normalization with
Russia, try to split Russia from China? Because in their minds, the real enemy is not Russia,
the real enemy is a superpower economy–
STEPHEN COHEN: In whose mind?
PAUL JAY: Much of the American foreign policy establishment, both Democrat and
Republican.
STEPHEN COHEN: The real enemy is ?
PAUL JAY: China. Because that's the global economy, that's going to be the competing
superpower.
STEPHEN COHEN: Let's say you're right.
PAUL JAY: And that doesn't in any way say it's still, in the final analysis, a good
thing if Trump can diminish these tensions. But let's give it the whole context.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, but it doesn't–I'm not sure what the whole context is. It
seems to me you just said to me that Trump or these people were playing for Russia's support
against Iran in China.
PAUL JAY: As one piece of this, yeah.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, if so, it's a fool's folly. Russia is leaving the West. I mean,
it can't leave the West geopolitically, because Russia is so big, it's half in the West and a
half in the un-West geographically. But American foreign policy, NATO expansion, the unwise
policies made in Brussels and Washington, are driving Russia from the West.
PAUL JAY: No doubt.
STEPHEN COHEN: And when you leave the West, where do you end up, Paul?
PAUL JAY: They are pushing exactly the kind of a line–
STEPHEN COHEN: Where do you go?
PAUL JAY: Well, with China, of course.
STEPHEN COHEN: And not only China, where else? All major powers that are not members
of NATO, including Iran. So when Putin came to power, he was very much in the tradition of
Gorbachev and Yeltsin. He wanted a strategic alliance with the United States. Who was the first
person to call up Bush after 9/11? Putin. And he said, "George, anything." And if you go back
and look at what the Russians did to help the American ground war in Afghanistan against the
Taliban, whether you think it was a good idea or not, that ground war, Russia did more to save
American lives–Russian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan–than any NATO country
did.
PAUL JAY: No, Iran did more than any NATO country to help America.
STEPHEN COHEN: But Russia had assets, unbelievable assets, and corridors for
transportation, and even an army, the Northern Alliance, that it kept in Afghanistan. It gave
it all to the United States. Putin wanted a strategic alliance with the United States, and what
did he get in return? He got from Bush, the second Bush, more NATO expansion right to Russia's
borders, and as I mentioned before, American withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty,
which had been the bedrock of Russian nuclear security for 30 or 40 years. He got betrayed, and
they use that word, "We were betrayed by Washington." This is serious stuff.
The pivot away from the West begins there and continues with these crazy policies that
Washington has pursued toward Russia. It doesn't mean that Russia is gone forever from the
West, but if you look at the billions of dollars of investment, you look at which way the
pipelines flow, you look at Russia–Putin meets like six times a year, maybe more, with
the leader of China. They've each called each other their best friend in politics. Trump meets
with Putin and we think, "Oh my god, how can he meet with him." I mean, it's normal.
PAUL JAY: Netanyahu just met with Putin; nobody said a word.
STEPHEN COHEN: But the point here is that Russia has been torn between East and the
West forever. Its best policy, in its own best interest, is to straddle East and West, not to
be of the East or the West, but it's impossible in this world today. And U.S.-led Western
policy since the end of the Soviet Union, and particularly since Putin came to power in 2000,
has persuaded the Russian ruling elite that Russia can not count any longer, economically,
politically, militarily, on being part of the West. It has to go elsewhere. So all this talk
about wanting to win Russia to an American position that's anti-Iranian and anti-Chinese is
conceived in disaster and will end in disaster. They should think of some other foreign
policy.
PAUL JAY: I agree, but I think that's what Trump's–the people around Trump that
wanted the detente–
STEPHEN COHEN: We should get new people.
PAUL JAY: Well
STEPHEN COHEN: I'll tell you truthfully, if Trump really wants to cooperate with
Russia for the sake of American national security, if we forget all this Russiagate stuff and
we say, "The guy is a little dim, but his ideas are right, you've got to cooperate with
Russia," he has to get some new advisors. Because the people around him don't have a clue how
to do it.
PAUL JAY: I don't think that is the intent, the intent is make money. I don't think
there's any other intent. Make money for arms manufacturers, fossil fuel–
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, hope dies with us. I just don't see that constant bashing of
Trump demeaning him, though it's so easy to do, helps us think clearly about American national
interests.
PAUL JAY: I don't think bashing Trump by dredging up the demons of the Cold War is
anything but war mongering. On the other hand, I don't think we should create any illusions
about who Trump is.
STEPHEN COHEN: So let me give you the part with a paradox. We shouldn't have any
illusions about who Trump is, that seems like–
PAUL JAY: Or who the system is, really.
STEPHEN COHEN: OK. So let's say–I mean, that seems a sensible point of view.
But let me ask you a question. Why was it that American presidents since Eisenhower could do
detente with Soviet communist leaders, and they weren't demonized after Stalin, but we're not
permitted–and certainly Trump is not permitted–to do detente with a Russian Kremlin
anti-communist leader, which Putin is? Did we like the communists better than the
anti-communists in the Kremlin?
PAUL JAY: No. I'll give you what I think, it's just a layman's opinion. I think the
foreign policy establishment, the elite, they were absolutely furious that after all these
decades of trying to overthrow the Soviet Union, and they finally accomplish–although I
think it was mostly an internal phenomenon, but still–and then they get Yeltsin and they
have open Wild West, grabbing all these resources. I think they were really pissed that a state
emerged, led by Putin, that said, "Hold on, it may be oligarchs, but they're going to be
Russian, and you Americans aren't going to have a free-for–all, taking up the resources
and owning the finance. We're not going to be a third world country to your empire."
STEPHEN COHEN: That's correct.
PAUL JAY: And they're pissed off at that.
STEPHEN COHEN: They, meaning ?
PAUL JAY: The Americans.
STEPHEN COHEN: Our people.
PAUL JAY: Our people. Well, I don't want to even take ownership for it.
STEPHEN COHEN: Don't run away. I don't know your age–
PAUL JAY: I'm 67.
STEPHEN COHEN: So we've established that I'm older than you.
PAUL JAY: No doubt. But you look younger, and I'm pissed at that.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, that's a separate subject.
PAUL JAY: You've got more hair.
STEPHEN COHEN: I've got more hair. You've distracted me. What we share, despite the
age difference, is that we grew up at a time when we were told–whether you or I believed
it or not, but our generations, two generations, were told we are against Russia because it's
communist. We were told that for decade after decade after decade. Now, Russia, the Kremlin, is
not communist, it's anti-communist, and we're still against Russia. How do Russian
intellectuals and policy-makers interpret that turnabout, that it was never about communism, it
was about Russia? There's a saying in Russia formulated by a philosopher, his name was
Zinoviev, he passed on but he was very influential, they were shooting–meaning the
West–they were shooting at communism, but they were aiming at Russia.
And the view, very widespread among the Russian policy intellectual class today, is that
Washington, in particular, will never accept Russia as an equal great power in world affairs,
regardless of whether Russia is communist or anti-communist. And if that is so, Russia has to
entirely reconceive its place in the world and its thinking about the West. And that point of
view is ascending in Russia today due to Western policy. But just remember the view that all
during the previous Cold War, they claim they were shooting at communism, but it was really
Russia. And they still are today.
PAUL JAY: Yeah, I agree with that. I just–
STEPHEN COHEN: But we don't–you and I may agree, but we don't want Russians to
think that way.
PAUL JAY: But I think the view coming out of World War II about being the global
hegemon, the superpower, what that also means is you can't have any adversarial regional
powers. And whether it's Russia or Iran, if you're not in the smaller American sphere of
influence, the umbrella, you can't be there.
STEPHEN COHEN: It's funny you say that. I mean, I'm not a Putin apologist or a Trump
apologist, but I do like intellectual puzzles. If you're saying that we have to give up our
thinking about a multipolar world, so to speak, that there'll be other regional superpowers or
great powers, then isn't Trump the first American president who seems to be OK with that? I
don't see in Trump much a demand that we be number one.
PAUL JAY: Oh, I think Make America Great Again?
STEPHEN COHEN: But he didn't say Make American Number One Again. Maybe that's what he
means, but you don't have Trump–
PAUL JAY: I don't think it kind of matters what the hell Trump thinks or says. And I
think–
STEPHEN COHEN: Have you heard Trump say this thing that Obama and Madeleine Albright
ran around saying for years, that American is "the indispensable nation?" Do you know how
aggravated that made other states in the world? I mean, stop and think about it. Who runs
around saying "we're indispensable?" I haven't heard Trump say that, maybe he has.
PAUL JAY: I just don't think we should put too much weight into whatever Trump says.
I think he's a vehicle, he's a vessel.
STEPHEN COHEN: You take what you can get these days.
PAUL JAY: He's a vessel, first and foremost, for the arms manufacturers, for the
fossil fuel industry. He's a vessel for right-wing evangelical politics. He's not a philosopher
king. He's not a peacenik.
STEPHEN COHEN: You have to have priorities.
PAUL JAY: I think he's rather banal.
STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, probably, but you have to have priorities. My priority in
international affairs is to avoid a military conflict with Russia. In my book, my new book, War
with Russia?, when I start writing that book in 2013, I never intended to give it that title.
But as I worked and watched events unfold since 2013 to 2019, for the first time in my long
career, I thought war with Russia was possible. I didn't even think there was going to be a
war–as I remember it, I don't remember it vividly–during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Today, I assure you, the new Cold War is fraught with multiple Cuban Missile Crises. Take your
pick; in the Baltic area where NATO is building up, in Ukraine where we've got ourselves
involved in a proxy war, in Georgia where NATO is trespassing again as we talk, in Syria where
American and Russian forces are flying and fighting on the ground in close proximity. By the
way, Trump was absolutely right in withdrawing those–what were they–3000 Americans
in Syria because whatever, Russia had killed just one of them.
With Trump in the White House, the trip wires, a war between nuclear Russia and nuclear
America, are far greater and more multiple than they have ever been. That's the danger.
Therefore, at this moment, if Trump says it's necessary to cooperate with Russia, on that one
issue we must support him. It's existential at this moment. And believe me, and believe me,
people love to hate on Putin in this country; "Putin's evil, Putin's bad." It's nonsense. Putin
is a recognizable leader in Russia's tradition. Putin, as you said I think before, came to
power wanting an alliance with the United States. He's spoken of his own illusions publicly.
Leaders very rarely admit they ever had an illusion, rights, it's not something they do. He is
reproached in Russia, reproached in Russia, for still having illusions about the West. You know
what they say about him in high places in Russia? "He's not proactive, he just reacts, he waits
for the West to do something abysmal to Russia, and then he acts. Why doesn't he first see
what's coming?" What do they cite? They cite Ukraine.
PAUL JAY: Well, that's the next segment, because my question to you is going to be,
"Did Putin make a mistake in Crimea?" So please join us for the continuation of our series of
interviews with Stephen Cohen on Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network.
In a country where the media runs the lives of gullible citizens, it is easy to
believe that all the moves are being made for the peace and well being of all. Behind the
curtains, a narcissistic and egotistic machine is hard at work trying to sell war for
peace. This business only benefits a few and causes great suffering on others ... but who
am I kidding, no one cares, as long money is being made ... no one really cares!
The US Constitution and other supporting documents have long stymied attempts at
direct democracy in the US. Beware of anyone claiming to be a strict Constitutionalist !
They hate democracy and embrace slavery in all its disguises.
Great points, Mr. Cohen....this protracted attack on Russia via the phoney
"Russiagate" investigation has set back relations with Russia for years to come....of
course, even here in Bezerkeley, there were signs posted everywhere before the 2016 election: "Hillary=WWIII
(just sayin')".....even the libs around here knew the Clinton cabal wanted a war with
Russia ASAP
That Trump represents a thinking that the post Soviet reality is not of a
uni-superpower world, but one of a multi-polar world dominated by US economic empire.
I think that's true.
After reading "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New
Century" in 2005, I came to the idea that the most dangerous section of the American
elite were those that posited this uni-superpower world order idea; an impossibility in
this age of technology (one in which even small economies like Canada could lead the
world in nuclear physics understandings and implementation, and one where our collective
wealth of scientific understanding and method, plus systems management, can 'leap' a
large agrarian/industrial economy (China) to a 2nd generation industrial world power in
50 years, proves that understanding).
I haven't read the first part. But what the second part reveals is not that
unravelling. American power is despotic. No principles. Money gain only. Russia turned
democratic after enlightened brains like Yuri Andropov (Jewish-born ex-KGB Chief), old
fox Andrei Gromyko, Gorbachev plus- plus, decided to change the system. In other words,
Russia was willing for openness. But American oligarchs wanted to usurp Russian wealth
with a hand stroke after Soviet State implosion.
Second, why did Rothschild-Rockefeller Banker vassals like Henry Kissinger, Schultz under
Edward Teller influence, sabotage the Reagan-Gorbachev understanding to eliminate nuclear
weapons entirely in Reykjavik, insisting unilateral Star Wars capability for the U.S. to
remain as sole Superpower.
The problem is the incorrigible Big C (Capital) that wanted to eat away Russian minerals
that Putin stopped in national interest. Any subsequent cooperation from the Russian side
was probably was only for strategic cooperation with the U.S. to have world peace.
Steve belongs to that lone group of handful, distinguished U.S. intellectuals who see
problems as they are in eventual meaningfulness for objective U.S. politics. I admire his
talent and courage and support him.
George Chakko, former U.N. correspondent, now retiree in Vienna, Austria.
Vienna, 20/04/2019 06:05 am CET
Not a word in Cohen's appraisal about US criminality. Jay was pushing in that
direction. I hope they get around to the criminality of the Deep State Mafia.
That is the
narrative that will get the most results. Trump is greedy and the neocons have already
attacked him on two fronts: Russiagate and his need for money. He will likely do what the
New World Order folks want him to do. Russiagate will turn out to be a benefit as long as
he sticks with the program that the Neocons want. Who has pushed the US hard to get into
war with Russia? Hilary, Obama, Cheney, now Bolton --all New World Order soldiers who
will commit any crime to rule the world. This is what we are facing.
Trump like every POTUS since JFK does the bidding of the Zionist masters. Every POTUS
except Nixon and Carter that is, and they were demonised and side tracked respectively.
Nixon for his feral decision to recognise China and Jimmy Carter for being a dangerous
liberal. But Trump is a normal run of the mill POTUS minus the PR masking tape. Perhaps
the system has decided that the nice respectable masking tape is now an unnecessary
add-on and every future president (if there are any or many) will do the will of Wall St
and Tel Aviv as openly as does Trump and the msm will assure us that this is good and
necessary. Good fo the economy and necessary to protect the poor suffering Jewish nation
from the anti Semitic hatred of the deluded Palestinian lovers
and finally i think Putin is for Russian greatness, trump is for money for himself and
his family, but also for a white America if that can fit in with his money making
schemes.
I'm sorry, but Paul Jay, whom I sincerely admire, though with some reservations,
sounds in this--very important--interview as if he were suffering from attention deficit
syndrome. You see it most of all in the transcript. Stephen Cohen attempted to keep the
discussion coherent and focused, and Paul injected irrelevancies. Paul, please keep your
eye on the ball. Stephen Cohen is presenting an important message. It's OK to disagree
with it, if you have coherent reasons, but it's important even if it's wrong.
I think it's a mistake to take Trump at his word on anything that doesn't directly
benefit himself. He is two things; an economic animal and a con man, and his motives are
no more complicated than those of a cat. Unlike HRC, Bolton, Cheney Bush etc. he's no
ideologue for war, however, I don't think he has any deep seated dislike of it either, so
taking him at his word, either for or against any military action is foolish; basically,
he's running a con and seeing where it goes, especially if there's any money in it for
him or his family, a very obvious characteristic of his relationship with the Saudis and
his continuing support of their genocidal war in Yemen, a gift he inherited from our
Nobel Peace Prize president.
In the long run, there will be no stopping an alliance between the PRC and Russia,
especially given our political elites' inability to see we are living in a world they can
no longer dominate through an institution, the military, that few have ever been in, and
those of Vietnam war draft eligibility, avoided at all costs, and they will continue that
losing effort until the combined economic might of those nations and their geographic
location on the world's most important land mass, Eurasia, and its proximity to resource
rich Africa, eventually bring about the downfall of the American Empire.
1) Trump personally doesn"t want wars, never mind a war with Russia, though he's no
philosopher or angel.
2) the neolibs, who almost had Russia in the bag before Putin came to power, have been
pissed off at Putin and want regime change in Russia.
3) the same neolibs also want to pit russia, iran, and china against each other, in order
to complete and maintain their New World Order.
4) the same neolibs panicked at Trump's election victory but has reined him in since with
Russiagate. so whatever Trump wants matters not at the moment.
5) the same neolibs have miserably failed in their pursuit of 2) and 3) because of the
alliance of the three, russia, china, and iran. now the entire arab world has declared
independence from the US of Israel, because they now see an alternative bloc of russia,
china, and iran to work with.
all the above are true. more and more people see the truth and reject the neolibs that
the DNC leadership represents.
Trump will be reelected in 2020, if he fires bolton / pompeo / mnuchin / abrams etc.
so far, he's been all bark but no bite, which is a good sign.
Ever noticed how contradictory people you know can be? Ever noticed how contradictory
in yourself, in your own attitudes and deeds you can be? So why be surprised that Trump
can be Stephen Cohen's Trump as much as Paul Jay's Trump? No problem really :-)
There is no contraction between Cohen's observation that
Trump is a voice of sanity on Russia (it just shows how bad US discourse on Russia is)
and Jay's concern that detente with
Russia is part of larger plan for war (economic, kinetic or
hybrid) against Iran and China.
Real or fake, Trump's isolationism has produced no more peace than
Obama's tepid liberalism did and Trump's veto of a bipartisan resolution to forced an end
to American military involvement in Yemen has shown any arguments for an 'anti-war' Trump
were pure self-delusion.
Despite all the chaos and the moral panics that keep rocking the White House, Trump's
three National Security Advisors - Flynn, McMaster, Bolton - had one core commonality:
they want war with Iran. Watching the sinister neo-con Jim Woolsey betray the frothing
neo-con Flynn to Joe Biden was a comedy of neo-con infighting. A major part of Russiagate
was the older 'Atlanticist' neo-cons boxing in the boorish 'Trumpist' neo-cons. Whether
Atlantic Council or US-homegrown both flavors of neo-conservatism want war with Iran.
Wonderful article with Mr Jay playing the role of village idiot ? Mr Cohen speaks with
extreme clarity on Russia, which is totally unacceptable in for profit America by all
sides, where arms sales are us. In regards to Crimea , I'd ask Mr Jay, did Bush 1 make a
mistake in Panama where we killed 4 thousand civilians in keeping China from acquiring an
interest in the Panama canal?
There are so many contradictions under the tent of Killer Clown's circus that it
really isn't possible to make clear sense of them, is there?
I'll just say that he absolutely pimps "Amerika über alles", as it's the putrid
patriotic red white and blue meat he throws his base.
Does he buy his own sales pitch? He does whatever his tiny but tricky little mind
tells him is to his benefit. He'd be perfectly happy as a Russian oligarch or Saudi
prince (as long as Putin or MBS let him bloviate to his heart's content).
His only allegiance is to the state of his ego and bank account.
"... Sanctions are road rage. When you don't have a real policy, you do sanctions. But what's the logic of the sanctions? The sanction is we put this punishment on you. But when you change your behavior we will remove the punishment. Isn't that what we say with sanctions? Therefore sanctions have to be discussed if you're going to have diplomacy. So I would expect an American president to say to the Kremlin we need to have a lot of discussions, including the discussion of sanctions. The ones we've imposed. ..."
"... Actually, by now, depending on what comes next, I don't think the Kremlin cares very much. They've coped very nicely with the sanctions. Though it's hurting their ability to roll over their loans with Western banks, it's true. But generally speaking, they've managed. And Europe wants the sanctions ended, because it's hurt European manufacturers, I think there's 9,000 German firms that were or are making a profit in Russia. It's hurt European -- we have almost no trade with Russia, the United States. Sanctions is -- hurting Europe. ..."
"... Flynn was a professional intelligence officer. Let's repeat that. A professional intelligence officer. He knew everybody was listened to. It didn't bother him. The president had told him to have conversations with the Russian ambassador. There was a tradition of doing this. He had nothing to hide. ..."
"... The psychopaths in the Clinton campaign had no concern that the Russiagate meme would cause enormous consequences in the US relationships with important governments around the globe. Hillary Clinton attempted to damage Trump, the candidate that she wished for the Republicans to nominate, by alleging he was "Putin's puppet." More importantly, Clinton wanted to change the subject from her corruption that was evidenced in her leaked emails (likely by the murdered Seth Rich to Assange). The emails, among other things, proved that she and her toady Debbie Wasserman Schultz et al schemed to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... It's about Russian interference alright, but not in the election, rather with Washington's hegemonic ambitions in Eastern Europe (Ukraine), then in the Middle East (Syria) and now in South America (Venezuela). Charles Krauthammer's "unipolar moment" is over, the Bear is back. ..."
PAUL JAY: Welcome to Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. And I'm Paul
Jay.
People that follow this show know I particularly like to interview people that stick their
neck out and stick to their guns for what they believe in, what they're fighting for. And our
next guest is someone who's done both of those things under a lot of pressure. So this is the
story, to begin with, of Stephen Cohen. Stephen is emeritus professor of politics at Princeton
University, professor emeritus of Russian studies and history at New York University, and his
most recent book: War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russia. Thanks for
joining us again.
STEPHEN COHEN: Thanks, Paul.
PAUL JAY: So a lot of people were rather happy with Barr's summary of the Mueller
report. And as we sit here talking today we haven't seen the Mueller report, it hasn't been
given to Congress yet, and it may even happen tomorrow. We don't know. And it may change what
we think of what I'm about to ask, but I don't think it's going to change too much about what
I'm going to ask.
Obviously President Trump's pretty happy so far with the no collusion argument. And that was
pretty clear from what Mueller said; what Barr says Mueller said. There's a quote from Mueller
in Barr's summary. But I thought some people who've been critical of Russiagate were a little
bit too happy about this, because the more important, I thought, substance of what Mueller says
is that, in fact, Russia did interfere in the elections. And he takes it very seriously. And
the more important part of Russiagate narrative, I don't think, was ever the collusion part. In
fact, we all knew Mueller was not heading down any big collusion road anyway, because as you
pointed out in one of your interviews, I don't know if it was Larry King, you know, you could
see from how other people were being charged, Manafort and others, there was no breadcrumb
leading you to a collusion argument with Trump. The real problem is the underlying idea is that
this is an existential threat to American democracy, and Mueller more or less confirms
that.
And I thought people shouldn't be so happy about that part of it, because the substantial
argument -- and I'll quote you again -- is that whatever they did it was low-level stuff. It
happens all the time between these countries. They all interfere in each other's elections. And
then it gets raised to the existential level. That's the problem. And Mueller more or less
confirms that.
STEPHEN COHEN: You are absolutely right, only not right enough. This expression,
which has become a truth in the media and for too many politicians that "Russia attacked
America during the 2016 presidential election" is both exceedingly dangerous and a complete
falsehood. Why is it dangerous? Because if a great power is attacked, that great power has to
eventually attack back, counterattack. This is a ticking time bomb in relations with Russia. No
attack on America occurred in 2016. I was awake, present, and observant. I saw no missiles
descending on our country. No Russian paratroopers. No Russian submarines. No Russian combat
planes. Nothing. It's a complete fiction.
It's a form, I guess, of hyperbole. Did the Russians meddle? Some Russians? I don't know.
I'm not even sure the Kremlin knew anything about it. But the Russiagate story is that Putin
decided he wanted Trump to be in the White House. So he attacked American elections and rigged
it. So Trump is now in the White House. I don't know how many people actually believe this. But
too many continue to say it, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC. Too
many influential news outlets are putting out an exceedingly dangerous fiction which is a form
of warmongering. It didn't happen, but they won't let go of it.
So I agree with you. There was no attack on America. But they're keeping this up. Was there
meddling? As you say, sure. So let's do the -- briefly -- the history of Russian-American
meddling in each other's politics. Where would you like to begin? Should we begin with the
American intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1918? I mean, Wilson sent about 8,000
American troops to try to help overthrow the new red Communist government. Was that meddling?
Really, is it meddling? You tell me. Sounds like meddling to me.
PAUL JAY: It's armed intervention.
STEPHEN COHEN: It's armed intervention. All right. What about, to leap forward, 1996?
I was in Moscow, I observed it. Then-president of post-Soviet Russia Boris Yeltsin stood no
chance of being reelected. No chance whatsoever. He was like 3 percent in the polls. But the
Clinton administration desperately needed to keep him in power. So they meddled, big time. They
sent electoral experts -- not unlike, by the way, Paul Manafort. Guys who make a living
advising other countries about how to rig elections. We've got lots of them who do this for big
money. So they set up in the presidential hotel. You could see them. Clinton arranged, I think,
it was $10 billion, I may be wrong there, IMF loan to Yeltsin so Yeltsin could pay pensions and
salaries he hadn't paid for five years. I mean, we did the whole -- I mean this was a massive
intervention into Russia's election. And basically we kept Russia, Yeltsin, in the presidency.
Is that meddling? Is that meddling?
PAUL JAY: Yeah, of course.
STEPHEN COHEN: What happened with Russian meddling in 2016, compared to the kind of
meddling both sides have done, was jaywalking. The only reason it became one of the worst
scandals, and I think most damaging in American history, because of the loathing for Trump and
because the Clinton people couldn't accept that she was defeated fair and square. So they made
up a story. You know, there's this book Shattered which tells about how they sat around and
said we'll blame it on the Russians. However, it's exceedingly unpatriotic. It's warmongering.
It's damaging our institutions of the presidency.
I mean, if it's true -- for example, let's say it's true that the Kremlin can put Trump in
the White House. Then evidently our electoral system in this country is not reliable. And why
not a governor, or a senator, or a member of the Congress that Putin likes? And what about the
next one? I think it's going to erode confidence in our electoral system on the part of
American voters. And what about the presidency itself? I mean, people actually say that a
Kremlin puppet sits in the presidency. Do they think that the damage done to the institution of
the presidency is going to end when Trump leaves? And do they think Republicans aren't going to
do something similar to the next Democratic president?
And the media's scandalous coverage of this, abandoning their own standards. I mean, you
don't get your virginity back quite that easily. I mean, they've got a lot to atone for, but at
the moment they're not even prepared to say they did anything wrong. Just the other day the
heads of these -- CNN, the executive editor of the New York Times and the Washington Post --
all said they thought their coverage of Russiagate had been great. I mean, really? Really? I
mean, that's like a brain surgeon missing cancer, and then saying he thought he did a good job.
I mean, it's preposterous.
So we have a major problem here. And the myth -- there was no Russian attack. The Russians
meddled. Mainly what made the meddling different from the kind of meddling that went on, for
example, when there were Russian-backed American communist parties, for example, in this
country, is social media. It was a social media thing.
And a final point. Let's say that the Russians -- they didn't -- launched a major social
media attack to distort the thinking of American voters, and were successful. Because that's
one of the premises, right? People are saying that, right?
PAUL JAY: Yeah.
STEPHEN COHEN: What does that say for American voters? What contempt people have for
American voters. So-called American Democrats have contempt for American voters. And now what
are they doing? They're out busy censoring social media so that we won't get any information
that might disorient an American voter. You can't -- if you don't believe that the electorate
will reach a rational decision in voting by whatever interests individual voters have, you're
not a democrat. I don't mean a member of the Democratic Party. You're not a democratic person.
If you don't believe in voters you can't be a democratic person. Then you're an
authoritarian.
PAUL JAY: The story that got completely lost as they focused on low-level meddling
that was mostly -- that I think anyone can determine rather ineffective -- was the Cambridge
Analytica story, and Bannon, and the use of troll farms, American-controlled troll farms, to do
this targeted social media manipulation. And that's out there, including an arm of Cambridge
Analytica which helped shape the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. And the role of Robert
Mercer, who funded Bannon and Kellyanne Conway and originally backed Cruz, and then helped
create Trump as president, I mean, that's the real story of the Trump presidency. Not this
low-level meddling. And they've never really told that story in mainstream media. We did a
whole documentary on it on The Real News. This whole thing's been lost about the real kind of
sinister dark side to the 2016 elections.
STEPHEN COHEN: What worries me more, though, is the way Russiagate, Russiagaters, the
zealots of Russiagate, have criminalized contacts with Russia. I think that this Clinton
organization -- what's it called, Center for American Progress, or something, CAP, which has a
website called Thought Progress or something -- has some posted 150 Trump-related contacts with
Russia. I mean, I've had most of those contacts with Russia. I mean, I've had contacts with
Russian intelligence agents. One was a good friend of mine. Five or six of them I worked with
in a historical archive, and we did smoking breaks and lunch breaks together, and we talked. I
mean, I've had all sorts of contacts in my nearly 50 years of dealing with Russia. There was a
time when contacts were supposed to be good because it was a way of understanding and avoiding
conflict. Part of detente. Part of diplomacy. But Russiagate, the allegations -- and I don't
believe any of them, by the way -- the allegations have criminalized contacts.
Incidentally, as we talk, this young Russian woman, Marina Butina -- sometimes pronounced
here BuTIna, but it's BUtina, B-U-T-I-N-A -- has been sitting in an American prison for more
than six months, most of it in solitary, for doing nothing other than what many Americans do in
Russia, and that is go around talking about how good the American political system is to
Russia, Russians. She went around bragging on Putin and the Russian political system here. For
that she's been kept in prison, and was, as Russians say, finally broken. Literally. That's how
Russians break people. They lock you away to you confess. We call confession a plea. So she --
and she's still in prison, even though she pled.
What did she plead guilty to? Coming here and advocating Russian perspectives without
registering as a foreign agent. This is a Soviet practice, Paul. One of the things that worries
me is that Russiagate has generated too many Soviet-style practices by American authorities.
The use of informers. People who were sent to inform on members of Trump's team, like
Papadopoulos, for example. Holding people's families hostage. I mean, Mueller held General
Flynn's son hostage, essentially, until Flynn pled. And Flynn never should have pled guilty.
Never. In fact, he said the other day he regretted it.
Let's talk about Flynn, for example, to see how bogus this is. Flynn was taped, as he knew
he would be, making contact after Trump was elected, before Trump came President, with the
Russian ambassador, correct? That was how the story began.
PAUL JAY: And they had to know they were being listened to.
STEPHEN COHEN: Of course they [inaudible].
PAUL JAY: Or he should have.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, so you would say if he knew he was being listened to, why would
he go forward and have this meeting, or discussions, with the Russian ambassador? Because Trump
had told him to do it. And the reason is very simple to anyone who knows even a little history.
At least since Nixon -- maybe since Eisenhower and Kennedy -- but at least since Nixon, every
American president-elect has made a so-called back channel connection with the Russians, with
the Kremlin, before taking office. End of story. And we know -- I mean, Kissinger did it for
Nixon.
PAUL JAY: But Nixon did it with the North Vietnamese, and Johnson called it
treason.
STEPHEN COHEN: I don't care. The point of it is it's become traditional standard
practice for the president-elect to reach out to the Russians to say basically chill out, we're
going to discuss everything. I mean, you got to remember what happened. I mean, this was
dangerous. Obama, to his eternal disgrace, threatened the Russians with a cyberattack. He
threatened them. He said we've implanted in your infrastructure some kind of cyber thing.
PAUL JAY: And passed sanctions.
STEPHEN COHEN: But forget the sanctions. Forget the sanctions. He threatened them
with a secret attack on their infrastructure. Did it mean their medical system? Did it mean
their banking system? Did it mean their nuclear control system? And then the nitwit Vice
President -- Obama's -- goes out and tells jokes about it on late night TV. Yeah, hey, we got
him. What kind of behavior is this?
So I think Trump did absolutely the right thing. He told General Flynn, after Obama had made
this reckless statement, but after Trump was elected, but not yet president, told Flynn, go
tell the Russians not to overreact to what Obama said. Don't do anything crazy. We'll sort this
out when I take office. I personally am grateful he did that, because there were people in
Moscow arguing to Putin that they had to wage some kind of counterattack first. I mean, this
was a very dangerous moment that Obama created, unnoticed in this country. Unreported on.
But not only was it the tradition that the president-elect made contact with the Russians.
Backdoor. Everyone had done it. But in this case it was essential, because the crazies in
Moscow were urging Putin to do something based on what Obama had said. By the way, who's
vanished. On the question of Russiagate, Obama has disappeared himself. I mean Russiagate began
on Obama's watch as president. You'd think he'd have something to say. He hadn't said a
word.
PAUL JAY: But let me counter. I mean, I think the sanctions Obama put on Russia for
Russia's meddling in the U.S. elections was uncalled for; aggressive, and so on. And a
continuation of a bunch of aggressive policy. But their argument is Obama was the president,
and the sanctions had been implemented. And Trump was saying to Putin, don't worry, we're going
to get rid of them.
STEPHEN COHEN: No there's no record. This is-
PAUL JAY: I thought that was Flynn's conversation.
STEPHEN COHEN: No. No. What Flynn told Kislyak, so far as we know, I haven't heard
the tape, was do not overreact to this statement by Obama that your infrastructure is going to
be attacked, and we will discuss everything, maybe he said including sanctions, when Trump
takes the White House.
Now, let's back up a minute. Why shouldn't we discuss sanctions? The logic -- I don't
believe in sanctions. They're road rage. I mean, as we talk, a few nitwit senators are up on
the Hill trying to think up some new sanctions. And if you ask them what they're sanctioning
Russia for today, they couldn't tell you. Everything. In fact, they do tell you. It's called
for Putin's malign behavior in the world. It's not about Crimea anymore. It's not about voter
interference. It's just basically he's a malign character, and you can't have too many
sanctions.
Sanctions are road rage. When you don't have a real policy, you do sanctions. But what's
the logic of the sanctions? The sanction is we put this punishment on you. But when you change
your behavior we will remove the punishment. Isn't that what we say with sanctions? Therefore
sanctions have to be discussed if you're going to have diplomacy. So I would expect an American
president to say to the Kremlin we need to have a lot of discussions, including the discussion
of sanctions. The ones we've imposed.
Actually, by now, depending on what comes next, I don't think the Kremlin cares very
much. They've coped very nicely with the sanctions. Though it's hurting their ability to roll
over their loans with Western banks, it's true. But generally speaking, they've managed. And
Europe wants the sanctions ended, because it's hurt European manufacturers, I think there's
9,000 German firms that were or are making a profit in Russia. It's hurt European -- we have
almost no trade with Russia, the United States. Sanctions is -- hurting Europe.
PAUL JAY: Well, let's get back to Flynn. How could he not know that's being listened
to? And I guess they assume that this was not abnormal for an incoming president to have a
conversation like this.
STEPHEN COHEN:Flynn was a professional intelligence officer. Let's repeat that.
A professional intelligence officer. He knew everybody was listened to. It didn't bother him.
The president had told him to have conversations with the Russian ambassador. There was a
tradition of doing this. He had nothing to hide.
PAUL JAY: OK. There's a part of this that I don't think we're going to agree on, and
we're going to talk about that in the next-
STEPHEN COHEN: I don't even know you were disagreeing with me. Those are just facts I
gave you.
PAUL JAY: I didn't disagree up until this point. We might agree on something and then
disagree in the next segment. So please join us for the next segment of our series of
interviews with Stephen Cohen.
Stephen Cohen: "... [B]ecause of the loathing for Trump and because the Clinton people
couldn’t accept that she was defeated fair and square. So they made up a story. You
know, there’s this book Shattered which tells about how they sat around and said
we’ll blame it on the Russians."
The psychopaths in the Clinton campaign had no concern that the Russiagate meme would
cause enormous consequences in the US relationships with important governments around the
globe. Hillary Clinton attempted to damage Trump, the candidate that she wished for the
Republicans to nominate, by alleging he was "Putin's puppet." More importantly, Clinton
wanted to change the subject from her corruption that was evidenced in her leaked emails
(likely by the murdered Seth Rich to Assange). The emails, among other things, proved
that she and her toady Debbie Wasserman Schultz et al schemed to steal the nomination
from Bernie Sanders.
In fact Billary won the "election" by 3 million votes. But since we are not a
democracy it did not matter. Trump was appointed by America's elites, claiming otherwise
just serves the status quo. I'm sure Mr Cohen knows that?
It's about Russian interference alright, but not in the election, rather with
Washington's hegemonic ambitions in Eastern Europe (Ukraine), then in the Middle East
(Syria) and now in South America (Venezuela). Charles Krauthammer's "unipolar moment" is
over, the Bear is back.
Just a question Paul. Who is "too happy" that no collusion was found? Can you name
names? Russiagate debunkers like Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Mate may feel vindicated, but
I don't see happiness in the fact that the whole episode probably helps Trump.
"But I thought some people who’ve been critical of Russiagate were a little bit
too happy about this, because the more important, I thought, substance of what Mueller
says is that, in fact, Russia did interfere in the elections..."
If there was interference , it was , as Cohen says , on the level of jaywalking in its
seriousness. What would really constitute "an existential threat to American democracy"
is if this whole affair began and continued as a fabricated-from-whole-cloth stitch-up of
a candidate and then sitting President , orchestrated and implemented at the highest
levels of the CIA , FBI , Justice and State Depts. , etc., and possibly all the way up to
ex-Pres. Obama. If the origin of this whole mess is ever investigated properly , as it
should be , I hope TRNN will cover it and the ramifications of its findings at least as
thoroughly as it has the hoax itself , and will invite Stephen Cohen back to contribute
to that analysis. You certainly won't hear from him on the MSM , where such honesty and
clarity of thought are effectively banned.
Where is part 2? What is it that Paul Jay disagrees with Cohen? Sanctions are utterly
stupid. ALL sanctions against all countries should be removed, including those on Russia,
Iran, Venezuela, China and even North Korea. No self-respecting counties will submit to
the ridiculous demands of the terrorist empire because of sanctions.
Sanctions, embargoes, and tariffs, are a forms of taxation that harm the masses in the
state that applies them, while their rulers blame others for the resulting shortages and
higher prices.
fewer and fewer parties are concerning themselves about the US sanctions. not "even"
north korea, according to their latest communique. maybe that's why cohen says "forget
the sanctions."
Okay, Mr. Cohen spends a lot of time trashing the Clintons but is almost an apologist
for the Trump administration. He states correctly that the U.S. has meddled in Russian
politics in the past, notably in the 1920s and 1990s, which we probably shouldn't have
done but that does not make it okay for the Russians to do the same to us. His position
seems to be, tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye, so what, forget it. He dismisses, with
contempt, the idea that Russia meddled at all, but no one knows how much they meddled or
what the effects were because no one has looked into it.
Mr. Cohen states that Russia did not attack the U.S. by which he means militarily with
troops and missles. Obviously, that is true but so what. Is cyberassault not something
the U.S. should worry about? Also Mr. Cohen seems to imply that Vladimir Putin is not
that bad as leaders go, despite the poisonings, the assassinations, the imprisonment of
critics and banning of political opponents, and most egregious, the invasion of the
Ukraine and occupation of Crimea. He seems to think invading other countries is okay and
that the Europeans don't care because sanctions against Russia cause them economic
hardship. I suspect that many Europeans care very much about European countries invading
each other. He criticizes President Obama for placing sanctions on Russia and states that
Obama did so because the U.S. doesn't have a strategy regarding Russia. How does he think
the U.S. should respond? What does he think U.S. policy should be towards Russia?
Mr. Cohen defends Michael Flynn stating all new administrations contact Russia to
reassure them. Maybe so but that doesn't explain why Mr. Flynn failed to register as a
lobbyist for Turkey. Mr. Mueller would not have been able to hold Mr. Flynn's son
"hostage" if neither Flynn or his son had not done something illegal. Cohen also defends
Ms. Butina even though she was in contact with the National Rifle Association.
Altogether I don't find Mr. Cohen persuasive because of his dismissive arrogance of
everything supporting the Russiagate scandal. At this point no on is in a position to
accurately critique Russiagate until the report by Mr. Mueller is released.
It would have helped his case if he had expressed as much contempt for the Trump
Administration as he did of the Clinton and the Democrats such as some acknowledgement
that Trump is a dispicable, cruel, vicious and pathological narcissist. It also did not
help that Mr. Jay seemed embarrassed to question or critique Mr. Cohen's assertions.
Unfortunately in making his points Mr. Cohen takes too much information out of context
and leaves out far too many details of the Russiagate scandal.
I think if you listen more to professor Cohen (try Stephen Cohen John Batchelor show)
, you find acknowledgement of all of Trumps faults as well that you accurately described
and realize his "dismissive arrogance" relates to his informed knowledge of the
Russiagate scandal.
I couldn’t have put it any more coherently. I don’t find Mr. Cohen
persuasive at all, particularly after watching the Russian intelligence and counter
intelligence cohort at the House Intelligence Committee hearing. (They were extremely
knowledgeable.) After hearing them, this guy seems unbelievable to me. But! Paul got his
anti-Mueller report guy. At this point, this country is like a boulder ready to roll down
a cliff and finish democracy for good. Two of the issues I found ironic was that Mr.
Cohen 1) feels that Democrats must not think voters are very smart if they are swayed by
the Social Networks (ha!) and 2) he really believes (straight face) that our voting
system and elections in this country are solid and uncorrupted. Where has he been? Thank
you, Mark Swanson, for your eloquent analysis.
An historically factual and informative article once again based based on a false
premise. Trump was not elected. Billary won the election by 3 million votes. Trump was
appointed POTUS by the Electoral College, as Bush2 was appointed by the SCOTUS and then
employed a government official in Ohio to stuff electronic ballot boxes to secure himself
a second term, and the US media forced fed to desperate but credulous Americans the empty
suit Obomber turned out to be to. The US is not and has never been a Democracy, more a
police state run by Plutocrats . Mr Cohen simply trumpets the corporate approved
narrative offering incrementalism for obedience. Kissinger and friends, investment
advisers to most of the worlds tyrants, continues to facilitate Putin's end run around US
sanctions helping him invest his enormous fortune.
you don't like the rules? then change the rules first. Trump won the election fair and
square, following the rules. if the rules had been different, voters and candidates would
have behaved totally differently as well in terms of campaign strategies and voting.
Trump could have won the popular vote by a landslide. ever thought about that? no.
"... Washington has made many policies strongly influenced by' the demonizing of Putin -- a personal vilification far exceeding any ever applied to Soviet Russia's latter-day Communist leaders. ..."
"... As with all institutions, the demonization of Putin has its own history'. When he first appeared on the world scene as Boris Yeltsin's anointed successor, in 1999-2000, Putin was welcomed by' leading representatives of the US political-media establishment. The New York Times ' chief Moscow correspondent and other verifiers reported that Russia's new leader had an "emotional commitment to building a strong democracy." Two years later, President George W. Bush lauded his summit with Putin and "the beginning of a very' constructive relationship."' ..."
"... But the Putin-friendly narrative soon gave away to unrelenting Putin-bashing. In 2004, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof inadvertently explained why, at least partially. Kristof complained bitterly' of having been "suckered by' Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin." By 2006, a Wall Street Journal editor, expressing the establishment's revised opinion, declared it "time we start thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States." 10 , 11 The rest, as they' say, is history'. ..."
"... In America and elsewhere in the West, however, only purported "minuses" reckon in the extreme vilifying, or anti-cult, of Putin. Many are substantially uninformed, based on highly selective or unverified sources, and motivated by political grievances, including those of several Yeltsin-era oligarchs and their agents in the West. ..."
"... Putin is not the man who, after coming to power in 2000, "de-democratized" a Russian democracy established by President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and restored a system akin to Soviet "totalitarianism." ..."
"... Nor did Putim then make himself a tsar or Soviet-like autocrat, which means a despot with absolute power to turn his will into policy, the last Kremlin leader with that kind of power was Stalin, who died in 1953, and with him his 20-year mass terror. ..."
"... Putin is not a Kremlin leader who "reveres Stalin" and whose "Russia is a gangster shadow of Stalin's Soviet Union." 13 , 14 These assertions are so far-fetched and uninfoimed about Stalin's terror-ridden regime, Putin, and Russia today, they barely warrant comment. ..."
"... Nor did Putin create post-Soviet Russia's "kleptocratic economic system," with its oligarchic and other widespread corruption. This too took shape under Yeltsin during the Kremlin's shock-therapy "privatization" schemes of the 1990s, when the "swindlers and thieves" still denounced by today's opposition actually emerged. ..."
"... Which brings us to the most sinister allegation against him: Putin, trained as "a KGB thug," regularly orders the killing of inconvenient journalists and personal enemies, like a "mafia state boss." ..."
"... More recently, there is yet another allegation: Putin is a fascist and white supremacist. The accusation is made mostly, it seems, by people wishing to deflect attention from the role being played by neo-Nazis in US-backed Ukraine. ..."
"... Finally, at least for now. there is the ramifying demonization allegation that, as a foreign-policy leader. Putin has been exceedingly "aggressive" abroad and his behavior has been the sole cause of the new cold war. ..."
"... Embedded in the "aggressive Putin" axiom are two others. One is that Putin is a neo-Soviet leader who seeks to restore the Soviet Union at the expense of Russia's neighbors. Fie is obsessively misquoted as having said, in 2005, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," apparently ranking it above two World Wars. What he actually said was "a major geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," as it was for most Russians. ..."
"... The other fallacious sub-axiom is that Putin has always been "anti-Western," specifically "anti-American," has "always viewed the United States" with "smoldering suspicions." -- so much that eventually he set into motion a "Plot Against America." ..."
"... Or, until he finally concluded that Russia would never be treated as an equal and that NATO had encroached too close, Putin was a full partner in the US-European clubs of major world leaders? Indeed, as late as May 2018, contrary to Russiagate allegations, he still hoped, as he had from the beginning, to rebuild Russia partly through economic partnerships with the West: "To attract capital from friendly companies and countries, we need good relations with Europe and with the whole world, including the United States." 3 " ..."
"... A few years earlier, Putin remarkably admitted that initially he had "illusions" about foreign policy, without specifying which. Perhaps he meant this, spoken at the end of 2017: "Our most serious mistake in relations with the West is that we trusted you too much. And your mistake is that you took that trust as weakness and abused it." 34 ..."
"... <img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png"> P. Philips ..."
"... "In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" ..."
"... Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation. ..."
"... If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris. ..."
THE SPECTER OF AN EVIL-DOING VLADIMIR PUTIN HAS loomed over and undermined US thinking about Russia for at least a decade. Inescapably,
it is therefore a theme that runs through this book. Henry' Kissinger deserves credit for having warned, perhaps alone among prominent
American political figures, against this badly distorted image of Russia's leader since 2000: "The demonization of Vladimir Putin
is not a policy. It is an alibi for not having one." 4
But Kissinger was also wrong. Washington has made many policies strongly influenced by' the demonizing of Putin -- a personal
vilification far exceeding any ever applied to Soviet Russia's latter-day Communist leaders. Those policies spread from growing complaints
in the early 2000s to US- Russian proxy wars in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and eventually even at home, in Russiagate allegations.
Indeed, policy-makers adopted an earlier formulation by the late Senator .Tolm McCain as an integral part of a new and more dangerous
Cold War: "Putin [is] an unreconstructed Russian imperialist and K.G.B. apparatchik.... His world is a brutish, cynical place....
We must prevent the darkness of Mr. Putin's world from befalling more of humanity'." 3
Mainstream media outlets have play'ed a major prosecutorial role in the demonization. Far from aty'pically', the Washington Post's
editorial page editor wrote, "Putin likes to make the bodies bounce.... The rule-by-fear is Soviet, but this time there is no ideology
-- only a noxious mixture of personal aggrandizement, xenophobia, homophobia and primitive anti-Americanism." 6 Esteemed
publications and writers now routinely degrade themselves by competing to denigrate "the flabbily muscled form" of the "small gray
ghoul named Vladimir Putin." 7 , 8 There are hundreds of such examples, if not more, over many years. Vilifying
Russia's leader has become a canon in the orthodox US narrative of the new Cold War.
As with all institutions, the demonization of Putin has its own history'. When he first appeared on the world scene as Boris Yeltsin's
anointed successor, in 1999-2000, Putin was welcomed by' leading representatives of the US political-media establishment. The New
York Times ' chief Moscow correspondent and other verifiers reported that Russia's new leader had an "emotional commitment to building
a strong democracy." Two years later, President George W. Bush lauded his summit with Putin and "the beginning of a very' constructive
relationship."'
But the Putin-friendly narrative soon gave away to unrelenting Putin-bashing. In 2004, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof inadvertently
explained why, at least partially. Kristof complained bitterly' of having been "suckered by' Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version
of Boris Yeltsin." By 2006, a Wall Street Journal editor, expressing the establishment's revised opinion, declared it "time we start
thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States." 10 , 11 The rest, as they' say, is history'.
Who has Putin really been during his many years in power? We may' have to leave this large, complex question to future historians,
when materials for full biographical study -- memoirs, archive documents, and others -- are available. Even so, it may surprise readers
to know that Russia's own historians, policy intellectuals, and journalists already argue publicly and differ considerably as to
the "pluses and minuses" of Putin's leadership. (My own evaluation is somewhere in the middle.)
In America and elsewhere in the West, however, only purported "minuses" reckon in the extreme vilifying, or anti-cult, of Putin.
Many are substantially uninformed, based on highly selective or unverified sources, and motivated by political grievances, including
those of several Yeltsin-era oligarchs and their agents in the West.
By identifying and examining, however briefly, the primary "minuses" that underpin the demonization of Putin, we can understand
at least who he is not:
Putin is not the man who, after coming to power in 2000, "de-democratized" a Russian democracy established by President
Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and restored a system akin to Soviet "totalitarianism." Democratization began and developed in
Soviet Russia under the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, in the years from 1987 to 1991.
Yeltsin repeatedly dealt that historic Russian experiment grievous, possibly fatal, blows. Among his other acts, by using tanks,
in October 1993, to destroy Russia's freely elected parliament and with it the entire constitutional order that had made Yeltsin
president. By waging two bloody' wars against the tiny breakaway province of Chechnya. By enabling a small group of Kremlin-connected
oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its people into poverty' and misery',
including the once-large and professionalized Soviet middle classes. By rigging his own reelection in 1996. And by' enacting a
"super-presidential" constitution, at the expense of the legislature and judiciary but to his successor's benefit. Putin may have
furthered the de-democratization of the Yeltsin 1990s, but he did not initiate it.
Nor did Putim then make himself a tsar or Soviet-like autocrat, which means a despot with absolute power to turn his
will into policy, the last Kremlin leader with that kind of power was Stalin, who died in 1953, and with him his 20-year mass
terror. Due to the increasing bureaucratic routinization of the political-administrative system, each successive Soviet leader
had less personal power than his predecessor. Putin may have more, but if he really is a "cold-blooded, ruthless" autocrat --
"the worst dictator on the planet" 1 " -- tens of thousands of protesters would not have repeatedly appeared in Moscow
streets, sometimes officially sanctioned. Or their protests (and selective arrests) been shown on state television.
Political scientists generally agree that Putin has been a "soft authoritarian" leader governing a system that has authoritarian
and democratic components inherited from the past. They disagree as to how to specify, define, and balance these elements, but
most would also generally agree with a brief Facebook post, on September 7, 2018, by the eminent diplomat-scholar Jack Matlock:
"Putin ... is not the absolute dictator some have pictured him. His power seems to be based on balancing various patronage networks,
some of which are still criminal. (In the 1990s, most were, and nobody was controlling them.) Therefore he cannot admit publicly
that [criminal acts] happened without his approval since this would indicate that he is not completely in charge."
Putin is not a Kremlin leader who "reveres Stalin" and whose "Russia is a gangster shadow of Stalin's Soviet Union."
13 , 14 These assertions are so far-fetched and uninfoimed about Stalin's terror-ridden regime, Putin, and Russia
today, they barely warrant comment. Stalin's Russia was often as close to unfreedom as imaginable. In today's Russia, apart from
varying political liberties, most citizens are freer to live, study, work, write, speak, and travel than they have ever been.
(When vocational demonizers like David Kramer allege an "appalling human rights situation in Putin's Russia," 1 " they
should be asked: compared to when in Russian history, or elsewhere in the world today?)
Putin clearly understands that millions of Russians have and often express pro-Stalin sentiments. Nonetheless, his role in
these still-ongoing controversies over the despot's historical reputation has been, in one unprecedented way, that of an anti-Stalinist
leader. Briefly illustrated, if Putin reveres the memory of Stalin, why did his personal support finally make possible two memorials
(the excellent State Museum of the History of the Gulag and the highly evocative "Wall of Grief') to the tyrant's millions of
victims, both in central Moscow? The latter memorial monument was first proposed by then-Kremlin leader Nikita Khrushchev, in
1961. It was not built under any of his successors -- until Putin, in 2017.
Nor did Putin create post-Soviet Russia's "kleptocratic economic system," with its oligarchic and other widespread corruption.
This too took shape under Yeltsin during the Kremlin's shock-therapy "privatization" schemes of the 1990s, when the "swindlers
and thieves" still denounced by today's opposition actually emerged.
Putin has adopted a number of "anti-corruption" policies over the years. How successful they have been is the subject of legitimate
debate. As are how much power he has had to rein in fully both Yeltsin's oligarchs and his own, and how sincere he has been. But
branding Putin "a kleptocrat" 16 also lacks context and is little more than barely informed demonizing.
A recent scholarly book finds, for example, that while they may be "corrupt," Putin "and the liberal technocratic economic
team on which he relies have also skillfully managed Russia's economic fortunes." 1 ' A former IMF director goes further,
concluding that Putin's current economic team does not "tolerate corruption" and that "Russia now ranks 35th out of 190 in the
World Bank's Doing Business ratings. It was at 124 in 2010." 18
Viewed in human teims, when Putin came to power in 2000, some 75 percent of Russians were living in poverty. Most had lost
even modest legacies of the Soviet era -- their life savings; medical and other social benefits: real wages; pensions; occupations;
and for men life expectancy, which had fallen well below the age of 60. In only a few years, the "kleptocrat" Putin had mobilized
enough wealth to undo and reverse those human catastrophes and put billions of dollars in rainy-day funds that buffered the nation
in different hard times ahead. We judge this historic achievement as we might, but it is why many Russians still call Putin "Vladimir
the Savior."
Which brings us to the most sinister allegation against him: Putin, trained as "a KGB thug," regularly orders the killing
of inconvenient journalists and personal enemies, like a "mafia state boss." This should be the easiest demonizing axiom to dismiss
because there is no actual evidence, or barely any logic, to support it. And yet, it is ubiquitous. Times editorial writers and
columnists -- and far from them alone -- characterize Putin as a "thug" and his policies as "thuggery" so often -- sometimes doubling
down on "autocratic thug" 19 -- that the practice may be specified in some internal manual. Little wonder so many politicians
also routinely practice it, as did US Senator Ben Sasse: "We should tell the American people and tell the world that we know that
Vladimir Putin is a thus. He's a former KGB aaent who's a murderer." 20
Leaving aside other world leaders with minor or major previous careers in intelligences services. Putin's years as a KGB intelligence
officer in then -East Germany were clearly formative. Many years later, at age 67. he still spoke of them with pride. Whatever
else that experience contributed, it made Putin a Europeanized Russian, a fluent Geiman speaker, and a political leader with a
remarkable, demonstrated capacity for retaining and coolly analyzing a very wide range of information. (Read or watch a few of
his long interviews.) Not a bad leadership trait in very fraught times.
Moreover, no serious biographer would treat only one period in a subject's long public career as definitive, as Putin demonizers
do. Why not instead the period after he left the KGB in 1991, when he served as deputy to the mayor of St. Petersburg, then considered
one of the two or three most democratic leaders in Russia? Or the years immediately following in Moscow, where he saw first-hand
the full extent of Yeltsin-era corruption? Or his subsequent years, while still relatively young, as president?
As for being a "murderer" of journalists and other ''enemies." the list has grown to scores of Russians who died, at home or
abroad, by foul or natural causes -- all reflexively attributed to Putin. Our hallowed tradition puts the burden of proof on the
accusers. Putin's accusers have produced none, only assumptions, innuendoes, and mistranslated statements by Putin about the fate
of "traitors." The two cases that firmly established this defamatory practice were those of the investigative journalist Anna
Politkovskaya, who was shot to death in Moscow in 2006; and Alexander Litvinenko, a shadowy one-time KGB defector with ties to
aggrieved Yeltsin-era oligarchs, who died of radiation poisoning in London, also in 2006.
Not a shred of actual proof points to Putin in either case. The editor of Politkovskaya's paper, the devoutly independent Novaya
Gazeta. still believes her assassination was ordered by Chechen officials, whose human-rights abuses she was investigating. Regarding
Litvinenko, despite frenzied media claims and a kangaroo-like "hearing" suggesting that Putin was "probably" responsible, there
is still no conclusive proof even as to whether Litvinenko's poisoning was intentional or accidental. The same paucity of evidence
applies to many subsequent cases, notably the shooting of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, "in [distant] view of the Kremlin,"
in 2015.
About Russian journalists, there is, however, a significant overlooked statistic. According to the American Committee to Protect
Journalists, as of 2012, 77 had been murdered -- 41 during the Yeltsin years, 36 under Putin. By 2018, the total was 82 -- 41
under Yeltsin, the same under Putin. This strongly suggests that the still -- pairtially corrupt post-Soviet economic system,
not Yeltsin or Putin personally, led to the killing of so many journalists after 1991, most of them investigative reporters. The
former wife of one journalist thought to have been poisoned concludes as much: "Many Western analysts place the responsibility
for these crimes on Putin. But the cause is more likely the system of mutual responsibility and the culture of impunity that began
to form before Putin, in the late 1990s.""
More recently, there is yet another allegation: Putin is a fascist and white supremacist. The accusation is made mostly, it
seems, by people wishing to deflect attention from the role being played by neo-Nazis in US-backed Ukraine. Putin no doubt regards
it as a blood slur, and even on the surface it is, to be exceedingly charitable, entirely uninformed. How else to explain Senator
Ron Wyden's solemn warnings, at a hearing on November 1, 2017, about "the current fascist leadership of Russia"? A young scholar
recently dismantled a senior Yale professor's nearly inexplicable propounding of this thesis.' 3 My own approach is
compatible, though different.
Whatever Putin's failings, the fascist allegation is absurd. Nothing in his statements over nearly 20 years in power are akin
to fascism, whose core belief is a cult of blood based on the asserted superiority of one ethnicity over all others. As head of
a vast multi-ethnic state -- embracing scores of diverse groups with a broad range of skin colors -- such utterances or related
acts by Putin would be inconceivable, if not political suicide. This is why he endlessly appeals for harmony in "our entire multi-ethnic
nation" with its "multi-ethnic culture," as he did once again in his re-inauguration speech in 2018. 24
Russia has, of course, fascist-white supremacist thinkers and activists, though many have been imprisoned. But a mass fascist
movement is scarcely feasible in a country where so many millions died in the war against Nazi Geimany, a war that directly affected
Putin and clearly left a formative mark on him. Though he was born after the war, his mother and father barely survived near-fatal
wounds and disease, his older brother died in the long German siege of Leningrad, and several of his uncles perished. Only people
who never endured such an experience, or are unable to imagine it, can conjure up a fascist Putin.
There is another, easily understood, indicative fact. Not a trace of anti-Semitism is evident in Putin. Little noted here but
widely reported both in Russia and in Israel, life for Russian Jews is better under Putin than it has ever been in that country's
long history."
Finally, at least for now. there is the ramifying demonization allegation that, as a foreign-policy leader. Putin has been
exceedingly "aggressive" abroad and his behavior has been the sole cause of the new cold war.26 At best, this is an
"in-the-eve-of-the-beholder" assertion, and half-blind. At worst, it justifies what even a German foreign minister characterized
as the West's "war-mongering" against Russia."
In the three cases widely given as examples of Putin's "aggression," the evidence, long cited by myself and others, points
to US-led instigations, primarily in the process of expanding the NATO military alliance since the late 1990s from Germany to
Russia's borders today. The proxy US-Russian war in Georgia in 2008 was initiated by the US-backed president of that country,
who had been encouraged to aspire to NATO membership. The 2014 crisis and subsequent proxy war in Ukraine resulted from the longstanding
effort to bring that country, despite large regions' shared civilization with Russia, into NATO.
And Putin's 2015 military intervention
in Syria was done on a valid premise: either it would be Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus or the terrorist Islamic
State -- and on President Barack Obama's refusal to join Russia in an anti-ISIS alliance. As a result of this history, Putin is
often seen in Russia as a belatedly reactive leader abroad, as a not sufficiently "aggressive" one.
Embedded in the "aggressive Putin" axiom are two others. One is that Putin is a neo-Soviet leader who seeks to restore the Soviet
Union at the expense of Russia's neighbors. Fie is obsessively misquoted as having said, in 2005, "The collapse of the Soviet Union
was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," apparently ranking it above two World Wars. What he actually
said was "a major geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," as it was for most Russians.
Though often critical of the Soviet system and its two formative leaders, Lenin and Stalin, Putin, like most of his generation,
naturally remains in part a Soviet person. But what he said in 2010 reflects his real perspective and that of very many other Russians:
"Anyone who does not regret the break-up of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants its rebirth in its previous form has
no head." 28 , 29
The other fallacious sub-axiom is that Putin has always been "anti-Western," specifically "anti-American," has "always viewed
the United States" with "smoldering suspicions." -- so much that eventually he set into motion a "Plot Against America."30
, 31 A simple reading of his years in power tells us otherwise. A Westernized Russian, Putin came to the presidency in
2000 in the still prevailing tradition of Gorbachev and Yeltsin -- in hope of a "strategic friendship and partnership" with the United
States.
How else to explain Putin's abundant assistant to US forces fighting in Afghanistan after 9/1 1 and continued facilitation of
supplying American and NATO troops there? Or his backing of harsh sanctions against Iran's nuclear ambitions and refusal to sell
Tehran a highly effective air-defense system? Or the information his intelligence services shared with Washington that if heeded
could have prevented the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2012?
Or, until he finally concluded that Russia would never be treated as an equal and that NATO had encroached too close, Putin was
a full partner in the US-European clubs of major world leaders? Indeed, as late as May 2018, contrary to Russiagate allegations,
he still hoped, as he had from the beginning, to rebuild Russia partly through economic partnerships with the West: "To attract capital
from friendly companies and countries, we need good relations with Europe and with the whole world, including the United States."
3 "
Given all that has happened during the past nearly two decades -- particularly what Putin and other Russian leaders perceive to
have happened -- it would be remarkable if his views of the W^est, especially America, had not changed. As he remarked in 2018, "We
all change." 33
A few years earlier, Putin remarkably admitted that initially he had "illusions" about foreign policy,
without specifying which. Perhaps he meant this, spoken at the end of 2017: "Our most serious mistake in relations with the West
is that we trusted you too much. And your mistake is that you took that trust as weakness and abused it." 34
"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" is a well known quotation (but probably not of
George Orwell). And in telling the truth about Russia and that the current "war of nerves" is not in the interests of either the
American People or national security, Professor Cohen in this book has in fact done a revolutionary act.
Like a denizen of Plato's cave, or being in the film the Matrix, most people have no idea what the truth is. And the questions
raised by Professor Cohen are a great service in the cause of the truth. As Professor Cohen writes in his introduction To His
Readers:
"My scholarly work -- my biography of Nikolai Bukharin and essays collected in Rethinking the Soviet Experience and Soviet
Fates and Lost Alternatives, for example -- has always been controversial because it has been what scholars term "revisionist"
-- reconsiderations, based on new research and perspectives, of prevailing interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian
history. But the "controversy" surrounding me since 2014, mostly in reaction to the contents of this book, has been different
-- inspired by usually vacuous, defamatory assaults on me as "Putin's No. 1 American Apologist," "Best Friend," and the like.
I never respond specifically to these slurs because they offer no truly substantive criticism of my arguments, only ad hominem
attacks. Instead, I argue, as readers will see in the first section, that I am a patriot of American national security, that
the orthodox policies my assailants promote are gravely endangering our security, and that therefore we -- I and others they
assail -- are patriotic heretics. Here too readers can judge."
Cohen, Stephen F.. War with Russia (Kindle Locations 131-139). Hot Books. Kindle Edition.
Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional
United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this
important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation.
Indeed, with the hysteria on "climate change" isn't it odd that other than Professor Cohen's voice, there are no prominent
figures warning of the devastation that nuclear war would bring?
If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson
on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods
by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a
loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional
nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris.
I cannot recommend Professor Cohen's work with sufficient superlatives; his arguments are erudite, clearly stated, supported
by the facts and ultimately irrefutable. If enough people find Professor Cohen's work and raise their voices to their oblivious
politicians and profiteers from war to stop further confrontation between Russia and America, then this book has served a noble
purpose.
If nothing else, educate yourself by reading this work to discover what the *truth* is. And the truth is something sacred.
America and the world owe Professor Cohen a great debt. "Blessed are the peace makers..."
So Russiagate smoothly transferred in Neo-McCarthyism and it will poison the US political atmosphere for a decade or two.
Notable quotes:
"... But as I foresaw well before the summary of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." ..."
"... Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections ..."
"... Persistent demands to "secure our elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate declining confidence in the entire electoral process ..."
"... Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites, which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people? ..."
"... Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. ..."
"... Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, " have no regrets ." ..."
"... Leading members of the party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance." With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional damage being done by Russiagate allegations. ..."
"... Rachel Maddow continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.) ..."
"... Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political, economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived, as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be " derisive and scornful " toward our political life. ..."
But as I foresaw well before the summary
of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests
are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent
of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." Joy Reid of MSNBC, which has been
a citadel of Russiagate allegations along with CNN, even suggested that Mueller and Attorney General William Barr were themselves
engaged in " a cover-up
."
Contrary to a number of major media outlets, from Bloomberg News to The Wall Street Journal , nor does Mueller's
exculpatory finding actually mean that "
Russiagate
is dead " and indeed that " it expired
in an instant ." Such conclusions reveal a lack of historical and political understanding. Nearly three years of Russiagate's
toxic allegations have entered the American political-media elite bloodstream, and they almost certainly will reappear again and
again in one form or another.
This is an exceedingly grave danger, because the real costs of Russiagate are not the estimated $25–40 million spent on the Mueller
investigation but the corrosive damage it has already done to the institutions of American democracy -- damage done not by an alleged
"Trump-Putin axis" but by Russsigate's perpetrators themselves. Having examined this collateral damage in my recently published book
War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate , I will only note them here.
§ Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack
of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections everywhere -- national, state, and local. If true, or even
suspected, how can voters have confidence in the electoral foundations of American democracy? Persistent demands to "secure our
elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate
declining confidence in the entire electoral process.
Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites,
which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people?
§ Defamatory Russsiagate allegations that Trump was a "Kremlin puppet" and thus "illegitimate" were aimed at the president but
hit the presidency itself, degrading the institution, bringing it under suspicion, casting doubt on its legitimacy. And if an "agent
of a hostile foreign power" could occupy the White House once, a "Manchurian candidate," why not again? Will Republicans be able
to resist making such allegations against a future Democratic president? In any event, Hillary Clinton's failed campaign manager,
Robby Mook, has already told us that there will be a "
next time ."
§ Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers
and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate
media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. No mainstream media
did anything to expose, for example, two crucial and fraudulent Russiagate documents -- the so-called Steele Dossier and the January
2017 Intelligence Community Assessment -- but instead relied heavily on them for their own narratives. Little more need be said here
about this institutional self-degradation. Glenn Greenwald and a few others followed and exposed it throughout, and now Matt Taibbi
has given us a meticulously documented
account of that systematic malpractice , concluding that Mueller's failure to confirm the media's Russiagate allegations "is
a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media."
Nor, it must be added, was this entirely inadvertent or accidental. On August 8, 2016, the trend-setting New York Times
published on its front page
an astonishing editorial manifesto by its media critic. Asking whether "normal standards" should apply to candidate Trump, he
explained that they should not: "You have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the
past half-century." Let others decide whether this Times proclamation unleashed the highly selective, unbalanced, questionably
factual "journalism" that has so degraded Russiagate media or instead the publication sought to justify what was already underway.
In either case, this remarkable -- and ramifying -- Times rejection of its own professed standards should not be forgotten.
Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the
Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, "
have no regrets ."
§ For better or worse, America has a two-party political system, which means that the Democratic Party is also a foundational
institution. Little more also need be pointed out regarding its self-degrading role in the Russiagate fraud. Leading members of the
party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell
from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance."
With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional
damage being done by Russiagate allegations.
As for Mueller's finding, the party's virtual network, MSNBC, remains undeterred.
Rachel Maddow
continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it
did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other
Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous
absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.)
§ Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political,
economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived,
as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's
necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts
with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle
has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be "
derisive and scornful
" toward our political life.
"... Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the parameters of the debate." ..."
"... "When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media." ..."
"... "And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though they haven't been convicted of anything." ..."
"... "That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said – I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that." ..."
"... Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.. ..."
Cohen has largely been banished from mainstream media.
"I had been arguing for years -- very much against the American political media grain --
that a new US/Russian Cold War was unfolding -- driven primarily by politics in Washington, not
Moscow," Cohen writes in War with Russia. "For this perspective, I had been largely
excluded from influential print, broadcast and cable outlets where I had been previously
welcomed."
On the stage at Busboys and Poets with Cohen was Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of
The Nation magazine, and Robert Borosage, co-founder of the Campaign for America's
Future.
Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship
imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union.
"Until some period of time before Trump, on the question of what America's policy toward
Putin's Kremlin should be, there was a reasonable facsimile of a debate on those venues that
had these discussions," Cohen said. "Are we allowed to mention the former Charlie Rose for
example? On the long interview form, Charlie would have on a person who would argue for a very
hard policy toward Putin. And then somebody like myself who thought it wasn't a good idea."
"Occasionally that got on CNN too. MSNBC not so much. And you could get an op-ed piece
published, with effort, in the New York Times or Washington Post ."
"Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times six or
seven years ago. But then it stopped. And to me, that's the fundamental difference between this
Cold War and the preceding Cold War."
"I will tell you off the record – no, I'm not going to do it," Cohen said. "Two
exceedingly imminent Americans, who most op-ed pages would die to get a piece by, just to say
they were on the page, submitted such articles to the New York Times , and they were
rejected the same day. They didn't even debate it. They didn't even come back and say –
could you tone it down? They just didn't want it."
"Now is that censorship? In Italy, where each political party has its own newspaper, you
would say – okay fair enough. I will go to a newspaper that wants me. But here, we are
used to these newspapers."
"Remember how it works. I was in TV for 18 years being paid by CBS. So, I know how these
things work. TV doesn't generate its own news anymore. Their actual reporting has been
de-budgeted. They do video versions of what is in the newspapers."
"Look at the cable talk shows. You see it in the New York Times and Washington
Post in the morning, you turn on the TV at night and there is the video version. That's
just the way the news business works now."
"The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate
these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in
these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have
been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the
parameters of the debate."
"If you are not, then you struggle to create your own alternative media. It's new in my
lifetime. I know these imminent Americans I mentioned were shocked when they were just told no.
It's a lockdown. And it is a form of censorship."
"When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident
voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes
they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media."
"Dissidents created what is known as samizdat – that's typescript that you circulate
by hand. Gorbachev, before he came to power, did read some samizdat. But it's no match for
newspapers published with five, six, seven million copies a day. Or the three television
networks which were the only television networks Soviet citizens had access to."
"And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some
other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like
keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though
they haven't been convicted of anything."
"That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said
– I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are
doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that."
Cohen appears periodically on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News. And that rankled one person
in the audience at Busboys and Poets, who said he worried that Cohen's perspective on Russia
can be "appropriated by the right."
"Trump can take that and run on a nationalistic platform – to hell with NATO, to
hell with fighting these endless wars, to do what he did in 2016 and get the votes of people
who are very concerned about the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Russia," the
man said.
Cohen says that on a personal level, he likes Tucker Carlson "and I don't find him to be a
racist or a nationalist."
"Nationalism is on the rise around the world everywhere," Cohen said. "There are
different kinds of nationalism. We always called it patriotism in this country, but we have
always been a nationalistic country."
"Fox has about three to four million viewers at that hour," Cohen said. "If I am not
permitted to give my take on American/Russian relations on any other mass media, and by the
way, possibly talk directly to Trump, who seems to like his show, and say – Trump is
making a mistake, he should do this or do that instead -- I don't get many opportunities
– and I can't see why I shouldn't do it."
"I get three and a half to four minutes," Cohen said. "I don't see it as consistent with my
mission, if that's the right word, to say no. These articles I write for The Nation ,
which ended up in my book, are posted on some of the most God awful websites in the world. I
had to look them up to find out how bad they really are. But what can I do about it?"
"... Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation. ..."
"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" is a well known quotation (but probably not of George
Orwell). And in telling the truth about Russia and that the current "war of nerves" is not in the interests of either the American
People or national security, Professor Cohen in this book has in fact done a revolutionary act.
Like a denizen of Plato's cave, or being in the film the Matrix, most people have no idea what the truth is. And the questions
raised by Professor Cohen are a great service in the cause of the truth. As Professor Cohen writes in his introduction To His
Readers:
"My scholarly work -- my biography of Nikolai Bukharin and essays collected in Rethinking the Soviet Experience and Soviet
Fates and Lost Alternatives, for example -- has always been controversial because it has been what scholars term "revisionist"
-- reconsiderations, based on new research and perspectives, of prevailing interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history.
But the "controversy" surrounding me since 2014, mostly in reaction to the contents of this book, has been different -- inspired
by usually vacuous, defamatory assaults on me as "Putin's No. 1 American Apologist," "Best Friend," and the like. I never respond
specifically to these slurs because they offer no truly substantive criticism of my arguments, only ad hominem attacks. Instead,
I argue, as readers will see in the first section, that I am a patriot of American national security, that the orthodox policies
my assailants promote are gravely endangering our security, and that therefore we -- I and others they assail -- are patriotic
heretics. Here too readers can judge."
Cohen, Stephen F.. War with Russia (Kindle Locations 131-139). Hot Books. Kindle Edition.
Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional
United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this
important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation.
Indeed, with the hysteria on "climate change" isn't it odd that other than Professor Cohen's voice, there are no prominent
figures warning of the devastation that nuclear war would bring?
If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson
on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods
by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a
loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional
nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris.
I cannot recommend Professor Cohen's work with sufficient superlatives; his arguments are erudite, clearly stated, supported
by the facts and ultimately irrefutable. If enough people find Professor Cohen's work and raise their voices to their oblivious
politicians and profiteers from war to stop further confrontation between Russia and America, then this book has served a noble
purpose.
If nothing else, educate yourself by reading this work to discover what the *truth* is. And the truth is something sacred.
America and the world owe Professor Cohen a great debt. "Blessed are the peace makers..."
This is a compelling book that documents and examines the senseless and dangerous demonizing of Russia and Putin. Unfortunately,
the elites in Washington and mass media are not likely to read this book. Their minds are closed. I read this book because I was
hoping for an explanation about the cause of the new cold war with Russia. Although the root cause of the new cold war is beyond
the scope of this book, the book documents baseless accusations that grew in frequency and intensity until all opposition was
silenced. The book documents the dangerous triumph of group think.
"On my planet, the evidence linking Putin to the assassination of Litvinecko, Nemtsov, and Politkovskaya and the attempt
on the Skripals is strong and consistent with spending his formative years in the KGB. The naive view from Cohen's planet is
presented on p 6 and 170."
Ukrainian history. That's evident to any attentive reader. I just want to state that Ukrainian EuroMaydan was a color revolution
which exploited the anger of population against the corrupt neoliberal government of Yanukovich (with Biden as the best friend,
and Paul Manafort as the election advisor) to install even more neoliberal and more corrupt government of Poroshenko and cut Ukraine
from Russia. The process that was probably inevitable in the long run (so called Baltic path), but that was forcefully accelerated.
Everything was taken from the Gene Sharp textbook. And Ukrainians suffered greatly as a result, with the standard of living dropping
to around $2 a day level -- essentially Central Africa level.
The fact is that the EU acted as a predator trying to get into Ukraine markets and displace Russia. While the USA neocons (Nuland
and Co) staged the coup using Ukrainian nationalists as a ram, ignoring the fact that Yanukovich would be voted out in six months
anyway (his popularity was in single digits, like popularity of Poroshenko those days ;-). The fact that Obama administration
desperately wanted to weaken Russia at the expense of Ukrainians eludes you. I would blame Nuland for the loss of Crimea and the
civil war in Donbass.
Poor Ukrainians again became the victim of geopolitical games by big powers. No that they are completely blameless, but still...
It looks like you inhabit a very cold populated exclusively with neocons planet called "Russiagate." So Professor Cohen really
lives on another planet. And probably you should drink less American exceptionalism Kool-Aid.
The problem is not Russia; the problem is the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. And related legitimization of neoliberal
elite, which now Deep State is trying ot patch with anti-Russian hysteria
Notable quotes:
"... That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present. ..."
Baseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia.
Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy | The Nation
The New Year has brought a torrent of ever-more-frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship
-- why mince words and call it "collusion"? -- with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will
not produce the hoped-for "bombshell" to end Trump's presidency. Certainly,
New York Times columnist
David Leonhardt seems worried, demanding, "The president must go," his drop line exhorting, "What are we waiting for?" (In some
countries, articles like his, and there are very many, would be read as calling for a coup.) Perhaps to incite Democrats who have
now taken control of House investigative committees. Perhaps simply because Russiagate has become a political-media cult that no
facts, or any lack of evidence, can dissuade or diminish.
And there is no new credible evidence, preposterous claims notwithstanding. One of The New York Times '
own recent "bombshells,"
published on January 12, reported, for example, that in spring 2017, FBI officials "began investigating whether [President Trump]
had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests." None of the three reporters bothered to point out that those "agents
and officials" almost certainly included ones later reprimanded and retired by the FBI itself for their political biases. (As usual,
the Times buried its self-protective disclaimer deep in the story: "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly
in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.")
Whatever the explanation, the heightened frenzy is unmistakable, leading the "news" almost daily in the synergistic print and
cable media outlets that have zealously promoted Russiagate for more than two years, in particular the Times , The Washington
Post , MSNBC, CNN, and their kindred outlets. They have plenty of eager enablers, including the once-distinguished Strobe Talbott,
President Bill Clinton's top adviser on Russia and until recently president of the Brookings Institution.
According to Talbott
, "We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trump into the White House and played him for a sucker . Trump has been colluding
with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency." In fact, we do not "know" any of this. These remain merely widely disseminated
suspicions and allegations.
In this cult-like commentary, the "threat" of "a hostile Russia" must be inflated along with charges against Trump. (In truth,
Russia represents no threat to the United States that Washington itself did not provoke since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.)
For its own threat inflation, the Times featured not an expert with any plausible credentials but Lisa Page, the former FBI
lawyer with no known Russia expertise, and who was one of those reprimanded by the agency for anti-Trump political bias. Nonetheless,
the Times quotes Page
at length : "In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western
alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability to spread our democratic ideals."
Perhaps we should have guessed that the democracy-promotion genes of J. Edgar Hoover were still alive and breeding in the FBI, though
for the Times , in its exploitation of the hapless and legally endangered Page, it seems not to matter.
Which brings us, or rather Russiagate zealots, to the heightened "threat" represented by "Putin's Russia." If true, we would expect
the US president to negotiate with the Kremlin leader, including at summit meetings, as every president since Dwight Eisenhower has
done. But, we are told, we cannot trust Trump to do so, because,
according to The Washington Post , he has repeatedly met with Putin alone, with only translators present, and concealed
the records of their private talks, sure signs of "treasonous" behavior, as the Russiagate media first insisted following the Trump-Putin
summit in Helsinki in July 2018.
It's hard to know whether this is historical ignorance or Russiagate malice, though it is probably both. In any event, the truth
is very different. In preparing US-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) summits since the 1950s, aides on both sides have arranged "private
time" for their bosses for two essential reasons: so they can develop sufficient personal rapport to sustain any policy partnership
they decide on; and so they can alert one another to constraints on their policy powers at home, to foes of such détente policies
often centered in their respective intelligence agencies. (The KGB ran operations against Nikita Khrushchev's détente policies with
Eisenhower, and, as is well established, US intelligence agencies have run operations against Trump's proclaimed goal of "cooperation
with Russia.")
That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy
of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding
information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo
afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin
leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present.
Nor should we forget the national-security benefits that have come from private meetings between US and Kremlin leaders. In October
1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met alone with their translators and an American official who took
notes -- the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished. The result,
in 1987, was the first and still only treaty abolishing an entire category of such weapons, the exceedingly dangerous intermediate-range
ones. (This is the historic treaty Trump has said he may abrogate.)
And yet, congressional zealots are now threatening to subpoena the American translator who was present during Trump's meetings
with Putin. If this recklessness prevails, it will be the end of the nuclear-superpower summit diplomacy that has helped to keep
America and the world safe from catastrophic war for nearly 70 years -- and as a new, more perilous nuclear arms race between the
two countries is unfolding. It will amply confirm a thesis set out in my book
War with Russia? -- that anti-Trump
Russiagate allegations have become the gravest threat to our security.
The following correction and clarification were made to the original version of this article on January 17: Reagan and Gorbachev
met privately with translators during their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, not February, and Reagan was also accompanied
by an American official who took notes. And it would be more precise to say that the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed
in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished.
Stephen F. Cohen is professor emeritus of politics and Russian studies at Princeton and NYU and author of the new book
War with Russia? From Putin and
Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate . This commentary is based on the most recent of his weekly discussions of the new US-Russian
Cold War with the host of the John Batchelor radio show. (The podcast is
here . Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at
TheNation.com . )
"... During the preceding Cold War with the Soviet Union, no attempt was made to "isolate" Russia abroad; instead, the goal was to "contain" it within its "bloc" of Eastern European nations and compete with it in what was called the "Third World." ..."
"... The notion of "isolating" a country of Russia's size, Eurasian location, resources, and long history as a great power is vainglorious folly. It reflects the paucity and poverty of foreign thinking in Washington in recent decades, not the least in the US Congress and mainstream media. ..."
"... Nationalism, that is, by whatever name, has long been a major political force in most countries, whether in liberal enlightened or reactionary right-wing forms. Russia and the United States are not exceptions. ..."
Washington's attempt to "isolate Putin's Russia" has failed and had the opposite
effect.
On the fifth anniversary of the onset of the Ukrainian crisis, in November 2013, and of
Washington "punishing" Russia by attempting to "isolate" it in world affairs -- a policy first
declared by President Barack Obama in 2014 and continued ever since, primarily through economic
sanctions -- Cohen discusses the following points:
1. During the preceding Cold War with the Soviet Union, no attempt was made to "isolate"
Russia abroad; instead, the goal was to "contain" it within its "bloc" of Eastern European
nations and compete with it in what was called the "Third World."
2. The notion of "isolating" a country of Russia's size, Eurasian location, resources,
and long history as a great power is vainglorious folly. It reflects the paucity and poverty of
foreign thinking in Washington in recent decades, not the least in the US Congress and
mainstream media.
3. Consider the actual results. Russia is hardly isolated. Since 2014, Moscow has arguably
been the most active diplomatic capital of all great powers today. It has forged expanding
military, political, or economic partnerships with, for example, China, Iran, Turkey, Syria,
Saudi Arabia, India, and several other East Asian nations, even, despite EU sanctions, with
several European governments. Still more, Moscow is the architect and prime convener of three
important peace negotiations under way today: those involving Syria, Serbia-Kosovo, and even
Afghanistan. Put differently, can any other national leaders in the 21st century match the
diplomatic records of Russian President Vladimir Putin or of his foreign minister, Sergei
Lavrov? Certainly not former US presidents George W. Bush or Obama or soon-to-depart German
Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nor any British or French leader.
4. Much is made of Putin's purportedly malign "nationalism" in this regard. But this is an
uninformed or hypocritical explanation. Consider French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently
reproached Trump for his declared nationalism. The same Macron who has sought to suggest
(rather implausibly) that he is a second coming of Charles de Gaulle, who himself was a great
and professed nationalist leader of the 20th century, from his resistance to the Nazi
occupation and founding of the Fifth Republic to his refusal to put the French military under
NATO command. Nationalism, that is, by whatever name, has long been a major political force
in most countries, whether in liberal enlightened or reactionary right-wing forms. Russia and
the United States are not exceptions.
5. Putin's success in restoring Russia's role in world affairs is usually ascribed to his
"aggressive" policies, but it is better understood as a realization of what is characterized in
Moscow as the "philosophy of Russian foreign policy" since Putin became leader in 2000. It has
three professed tenets. The first goal of foreign policy is to protect Russia's "sovereignty,"
which is said to have been lost in the disastrous post-Soviet 1990s. The second is a kind of
Russia-first nationalism or patriotism: to enhance the well-being of the citizens of the
Russian Federation. The third is ecumenical: to partner with any government that wants to
partner with Russia. This "philosophy" is, of course, non- or un-Soviet, which was heavily
ideological, at least in its professed ideology and goals.
6. Considering Washington's inability to "isolate Russia," considering Russia's diplomatic
successes in recent years, and considering the bitter fruits of US militarized and
regime-change foreign policies (which long predate President Trump), perhaps it's time for
Washington to learn from Moscow rather than demand that Moscow conform to Washington's thinking
about -- and behavior in -- world affairs. If not, Washington is more likely to continue to
isolate itself.
... ... ...
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and
Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian
Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at
TheNation.com.)
"Phil Collins
The only thing that can stop this ever happening is if the American people stand up to these
psychopaths running their country its called people power and would stop them in their tracks
madmen now run the Whitehouse"
"... War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine To Trump and Russiagate ..."
"... undermine American democracy ..."
"... are engaging in an elaborate campaign of 'information warfare' to interfere with the American midterm elections ..."
"... public evidence ..."
"... arsenal of disruption capabilities... to sow havoc on election day ..."
"... Kremlin propaganda ..."
"... portraying Russian and Syrian government forces favorably as they battled 'terrorists' in what US officials for years have portrayed as a legitimate uprising against the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad. ..."
"... Kremlin propaganda ..."
"... what US officials for years have ..."
"... undermining of American democracy ..."
"... We have met the enemy and he is us ..."
"... This article was originally published by The Nation . ..."
Allegations that Russia is still "attacking" US elections, now again in November, could
delegitimize our democratic institutions. Summarizing one of the themes in his new book, '
War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine To Trump and Russiagate ,' Stephen F. Cohen
argues that Russiagate allegations of Kremlin attempts to " undermine American
democracy " may themselves erode confidence in those institutions.
Ever since Russiagate allegations began to appear more than two years ago, their core
narrative has revolved around purported Kremlin attempts to " interfere " in the 2016
US presidential election on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump. In recent months, a number
of leading American media outlets have taken that argument even further, suggesting that
Putin's Kremlin actually put Trump in the White House and now is similarly trying to affect the
November 6 midterm elections, particularly House contests, on behalf of Trump and the
Republican Party. According to a page-one
New York Times "report," for example, Putin's agents " are engaging in an elaborate
campaign of 'information warfare' to interfere with the American midterm elections ."
Despite well-documented articles by
Gareth Porter and Aaron Mate
effectively dismantling these allegations about 2016 and 2018, the mainstream media continues
to promote them. The occasionally acknowledged lack of " public evidence " is
sometimes cited as itself evidence of a deep Russian conspiracy, of the Kremlin's " arsenal
of disruption capabilities... to sow havoc on election day ." (See the examples
cited by Alan MacLeod .)
Lost in these reckless allegations is the long-term damage they may themselves do to
American democracy. Consider the following possibilities:
Even though still unproven, charges that the Kremlin put Trump in the White House have cast
a large shadow of illegitimacy over his presidency and thus over the institution of the
presidency itself. This is unlikely to end entirely with Trump. If the Kremlin had the power to
affect the outcome of one presidential election, why not another one, whether won by a
Republican or a Democrat? The 2016 presidential election was the first time such an allegation
became widespread in American political history, but it may not be the last.
Now the same shadow looms over the November 6 elections and thus over the next Congress. If
so, in barely two years, the legitimacy of two fundamental institutions of American
representative democracy will have been challenged, also for the first time in history.
And if US elections are really so vulnerable to Russian " meddling ," what does
this say about faith in American elections more generally? How many losing candidates on
November 6 will resist blaming the Kremlin? Two years after the last presidential election,
Hillary Clinton and her adamant supporters still have not been able to do so.
We know from critical reporting and from recent opinion surveys that the origins and
continuing fixation on the Russiagate scandal since 2016 have been primarily a product of US
political-intelligence-media elites. It did not spring from the American people – from
voters themselves. Thus a Gallup poll recently
showed that 58 percent of those surveyed wanted improved relations with Russia. And other
surveys have shown that Russiagate is scarcely an issue at all for likely voters on November 6.
Nonetheless, it remains a front-page issue for US elites.
Indeed, Russiagate has revealed the low esteem that many US political-media
elites have for American voters – for their ability to make discerning, rational
electoral decisions, which is the bedrock assumption of representative democracy. It is worth
noting that this disdain for rank-and-file citizens echoes a longstanding attitude of the
Russian political intelligentsia, as recently expressed in the argument by a prominent Moscow
policy intellectual that Russian authoritarianism springs not from the nation's elites but from
the
"genetic code" of its people .
US elites seem to have a similar skepticism about – or contempt for – American
voters' capacity to make discerning electoral choices. Presumably this is a factor behind the
current proliferation of programs – official, corporate, and private – to introduce
elements of censorship in the nation's " media space " in order to filter out "
Kremlin propaganda ." Here, it also seems, elites will decide what constitutes such "
propaganda ."
The Washington Post recently gave
such an example : " portraying Russian and Syrian government forces favorably as they
battled 'terrorists' in what US officials for years have portrayed as a legitimate uprising
against the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad. " That is, thinking
that the forces of Putin and Assad were fighting terrorists, even if closer to the truth, is "
Kremlin propaganda " because it is at variance with " what US officials for years
have " been saying. This was the guiding principle of Soviet censorship as well.
If the American electoral process, presidency, legislature, and voter cannot be fully
trusted, what is left of American democracy? Admittedly, this is still only a trend, a
foreboding, but one with no end in sight. If it portends the " undermining of American
democracy ," our elites will blame the Kremlin. But they best recall the discovery of Walt
Kelly's legendary cartoon figure Pogo: " We have met the enemy and he is us ."
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York
University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation.
This article was originally published by The Nation
.
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies and politics at Princeton and NYU,
and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War.
(Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com). Cohen comments on the
following subjects currently in the news:
1. National intelligence agencies have long played major roles, often not entirely visible,
in international politics. They are doing so again today, as is evident in several countries,
from Russiagate in the United States and the murky Skripal assassination attempt in the UK to
the apparent murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Leaving aside what
President Obama knew about Russiagate allegations against Donald Trump and when he knew it, the
question arises as to whether these operations were ordered by President Putin and Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) or were "rogue" operations unknown in advance by the leaders and
perhaps even directed against them.
There have been plenty of purely criminal and commercial "rogue" operations by intelligence
agents in history, but also "rogue" ones that were purposefully political. We know, for
example, that both Soviet and US intelligence agencies -- or groups of agents -- tried to
disrupt the Eisenhower-Khrushchev détente of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and that
some intelligence players tried to stop Khrushchev's formal recognition of West Germany, also
in the early 1960s.
It is reasonable to ask, therefore, whether the attacks on Skripal and Khashoggi were
"rogue" operations undertaken by political opponents of the leaders' policies at home or
abroad, with the help of one or another intelligence agency or agents. Motive is a -- perhaps
the -- crucial question. Why would Putin order such an operation in the UK at the very moment
when his government had undertaken a major Western public-relations campaign in connection with
the upcoming World Cup championship in Russia? And why would MBS risk a Khashoggi scandal as he
was assiduously promoting his image abroad as an enlightened reform-minded Saudi leader?
We lack the evidence and official candor needed to study these questions, as is usually the
case with covert, secretive, disinforming intelligence operations. But the questions are
certainly reason enough not to rush to judgment, as many US pundits do. Saying "we do not know"
may be unmarketable in today's mass-media environment, but it is honest and the right approach
to potentially fruitful "analysis."
2. We do know, however, that there has been fierce opposition in the US political-media
establishment to President Trump's policy of "cooperating with Russia," including in US
intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and FBI -- and at high levels of his own
administration.
We might consider Nikki Haley's resignation as UN ambassador in this light. Despite the
laurels heaped on her by anti-Trump media, and by Trump himself at their happy-hour farewell in
the White House, Haley was not widely admired by her UN colleagues. When appointed for
political reasons by Trump, she had no foreign-policy credentials or any expert knowledge of
other countries or of international relations generally. Judging by her performance as
ambassador, nor did she acquire much on the job, almost always reading even short comments from
prepared texts.
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More to the point, Haley's statements regarding Russia at the UN were, more often than not,
dissimilar from Trump's -- indeed, implicitly in opposition to Trump's. (She did nothing, for
example, to offset charges in Washington that Trump's summit meeting with Putin in Helsinki, in
July, had been "treasonous.") Who wrote these statements for her, which were very similar to
statements regarding Russia that have been issued by US intelligence agencies since early 2017?
It is hard to imagine that Trump was unhappy to see her go, and easier to imagine him pushing
her toward the exit. A president needs a loyalist as secretary of state and at the UN. Haley's
pandering remarks at the White House about Trump's family suggests some deal had been made to
ease her out, with non-recrimination promises made on both sides. We will see if opponents of
Trump's Russia policy can put another spokesperson at the UN.
As to which aspects of US foreign policy Trump actually controls, we might ask more urgently
if he authorized, or was fully informed about, the joint US-NATO-Ukraine military air exercises
that got under way over Ukraine, abutting Russia, on October 8. Moscow regards these exercises
as a major "provocation," and not unreasonably.
3. What do Trump's opponents want instead of "cooperation with Russia"? A much harder line,
including more "crushing" economic sanctions. Sanctions are more like temper tantrums and road
rage than actual national-security policy, and thus are often counterproductive. We have some
recent evidence. Russia's trade surplus has grown to more than $100 billion. World prices for
Russia's primary exports, oil and gas, have grown to over $80 a unit while Moscow's federal
budget is predicated on $53 a barrel. Promoters of anti-Russian sanctions gloat that they have
weakened the ruble. But while imposing some hardships on ordinary citizens, the combination of
high oil prices and a weaker ruble is ideal for Russian state and corporate exporters. They
sell abroad for inflated foreign currency and pay their operating expenses at home in cheaper
rubles. To risk a pun, they are "crushing it."
Congressional sanctions -- for exactly what is not always clear -- have helped Putin in
another way. For years, he has unsuccessfully tried to get "oligarchs" to repatriate their
wealth abroad. US sanctions on various "oligarchs" have persuaded them and others to begin to
do so, perhaps bringing back home as much as $90 billion already in 2018.
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If nothing else, these new budgetary cash flows help Putin deal with his declining
popularity at home -- he still has an approval rating well above 60 percent -- due to the
Kremlin's decision to raise the pension age for men and women, from 60 to 65 and from 55 to 60
respectively. The Kremlin can use the additional revenue to increase the value of pensions,
supplement them with other social benefits, or to enact the age change over a longer period of
time.
It appears that Congress, particularly the Senate, has no Russia policy other than
sanctions. It might think hard about finding alternatives. One way to start would be with real
"hearings" in place of the ritualistic affirmation of orthodox policy by "experts" that has
long been its practice. There are more than a few actual specialists out there who think
different approaches to Moscow are long overdue.
4. All of these dangerous developments, indeed the new US-Russian Cold War itself, are elite
projects -- political, media, intelligence, etc. Voters were never really consulted. Nor do
they seem to approve. In August, Gallup asked its usual sample of Americans which policy toward
Russia they preferred. Fifty-seven percent wanted improved relations vs. only 36 percent who
wanted a tougher US policy with more sanctions. (Meanwhile, two-thirds of Russians surveyed by
an independent agency now see the United States as their country's number-one enemy, and about
three-fourths view China favorably.)
Will any of the US political figures already jockeying for the Democratic presidential
nomination in 2020 take these realities into account?
Stephen F. CohenStephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at
New York University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation.
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton
University, and John Batchelor continue their discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War.
(Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.)
Emphasizing growing Cold War extremism in Washington and war-like crises in US-Russian
relations elsewhere, Cohen comments on the following examples:
Russiagate, even though none of its core allegations have been proven, is now a central part
of the new Cold War, severely limiting President Trump's ability to conduct crisis-negotiations
with Moscow and further vilifying Russian President Putin for having ordered "an attack on
America" during the 2016 presidential election. The New York Times and The Washington Post have
been leading promoters of the Russiagate narrative, even though several of its foundational
elements have been seriously challenged, even discredited.
Nonetheless, both papers recently devoted thousands of words to retelling the same narrative
-- on September 20 and 23, respectively -- along with its obvious fallacies. For example, Paul
Manafort, during the crucial time he was advising then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych,
was not "pro-Russian" but pro -- European Union. And contrary to insinuations, General Michael
Flynn did nothing wrong or unprecedented in having conversations with a representative of the
Kremlin on behalf of President-elect Trump. Many other presidents-elect had instructed top
aides to do the same. The epic retellings of the Russiagate narrative by both papers, at
extraordinary length, were riddled with similar mistakes and unproven allegations.
(Nonetheless, a prominent historian, albeit one seemingly little informed both about Russiagate
documents and about Kremlin leadership, characterized the widely discredited anti-Trump Steele
dossier -- the source of many such allegations -- as "increasingly plausible.")
Astonishingly, neither the Times nor the Post give any credence to the emphatic statement
made at least one week before by Bob Woodward -- normally considered the most authoritative
chronicler of Washington's political secrets -- that after two years of research he had found
"no evidence of collusion" between Trump and Russia.
For the Times and Post and other mainstream media outlets, Russiagate has become, it seems,
a kind of cult journalism that no counter-evidence or analysis can dint, and thus itself is a
major contributing factor to the new and more dangerous Cold War. Still worse, what began
nearly two years ago as complaints about Russian "meddling" in the US presidential campaign has
become for The New Yorker and other publications an accusation that the Kremlin actually put
Trump in the White House. For this reckless charge, with its inherent contempt for the good
sense of American voters, there is no convincing evidence -- nor any precedent in American
history.
Meanwhile, current and former US officials are making unprecedented threats against Moscow.
NATO ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchinson threatened to "take out" any Russian missiles she thought
violated a 1987 arms treaty, a step that would risk nuclear war. The secretary of the interior
threatened a "naval blockade" of Russia. In an unprecedented, undiplomatic Russophobic
outburst, UN ambassador Nikki Haley declared that "lying, cheating and rogue behavior" are a
"norm of Russian culture."
These may be outlandish statements by untutored appointed political figures, though they
inescapably raise the question: Who is making Russia policy in Washington -- President Trump
with his avowed policy of "cooperating with Russia," or someone else?
But how to explain, other than as unbridled extremism, statements by a former US ambassador
to Moscow and longtime professor of Russian politics, who appears to be the mainstream media's
leading authority on Russia? According to him, Russia today is "a rogue state," its policies
"criminal actions," and the "world's worst threat." It must be countered by "preemptive
sanctions that would go into effect automatically" -- indeed, "every day," if deemed necessary.
[These are the words of Michael McFaul, who has appointments at Stanford University which has
become a friendly home for warmongers.]
Considering the "crippling" sanctions now being prepared by a bipartisan group of US
senators -- their actual reason and purpose apparently unknown even to them -- this would be
nothing less than a declaration of war against Russia; economic war, but war nonetheless.
Several other new Cold War fronts are also fraught with hot war, but today none more than
Syria.
Another reminder occurred on September 17, when Syria accidentally shot down an allied
Russian surveillance plane, killing all 15 crew members. The cause, as is known, was subterfuge
by Israeli F-15s supplied by Washington that used the larger radar image of the Russian
airplane to cloak their illegal attack on Syria. The reaction in Moscow was highly indicative
-- potentially ominous.
At first, Putin, who had developed good relations with Israel's political leadership, said
the incident was an accident, an example of the fog of war. His own Ministry of Defense,
however, loudly protested, blaming Israel. Putin quickly retreated, adopting a much more
hard-line position, and in the end vowed to send to Syria Russia's highly effective S-300
surface-to-air defense system, a prize both Syria and Iran have requested in vain for years.
[Actually, Russia has now supplied both Iran and Syria the S-300.]
Second, if the S-300s are installed in Syria (they will be operated by Russians, not
Syrians), Putin can in effect impose a "no-fly zone" over that country, which has been torn by
war due, in no small part, to the presence of several major foreign powers. (Russia and Iran
are there legally; the United States and Israel are not.) If so, it will be a new "red line"
that Washington and Tel Aviv must decide whether or not to cross. Considering the mania in
Washington, it's hard to be confident that wisdom will prevail. [Actually, it is likely that
Putin will shift the responsibility of using the air defense system to Syria.]
All of this unfolded on approximately the third anniversary of Russia's military
intervention in Syria, in September 2015. At that time, Washington pundits denounced Putin's
"adventure" and were sure it would "fail." Three years later, "Putin's Kremlin" has destroyed
the vicious Islamic State's grip on large parts of Syria, all but restored President Assad's
control over most of the country, and has become the ultimate arbiter of Syria's future.
President Trump would do best by joining Moscow's peace process, though it is unlikely
Washington's mostly Democratic Russiagate party will permit him to do so. (For perspective,
recall that, in 2016, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton promised to impose a US no-fly
zone over Syria to defy Russia.)
There is also this. As the US-led "liberal world order" disintegrates, not only in Syria, a
new alliance is emerging between Russia, China, Iran, and possibly NATO member Turkey. It will
be a real "threat" only if Washington makes it one, as it has Russia in recent years.
Finally, the US-Russian proxy war in Ukraine has recently acquired a new dimension. In
addition to the civil war in Donbass, Moscow and Kiev have begun to challenge each other's
ships in the Sea of Azov, near the vital Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. Trump is being
pressured to supply Kiev with naval and other weapons to wage this evolving war, yet another
potential tripwire. Here too President Trump would do best by putting his administration's
weight behind the long-stalled Minsk peace accords. Here, too, this seemed to be his original
intention, but it has proven to be yet another approach, it now seems, thwarted by
Russiagate.
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York
University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation .
"... Max Boot believes that Donald Trump should have threatened (Boot's word, not mine) Vladimir Putin. How does one go about threatening a country with inter-continental nuclear weapons systems that are proven to work? ..."
Let me stipulate at the outset that the phrase, "Max Boot," should be consider
as a new synonym in the Oxford English Dictionary for the word inane moron or
imbecile are other plausible possibilities.
Not since the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy have we witnessed such a bizarre,
vicious level of red-baiting and smearing. Max Boot, have you no decency?
You will understand the context of my introductory observations after you
view the following video. Max Boot believes that Donald Trump should have threatened
(Boot's word, not mine) Vladimir Putin. How does one go about threatening a
country with inter-continental nuclear weapons systems that are proven to work?
"... I'm somewhat puzzled why Trump and his people, when referring to the "fake news" and answering questions from hostile journalists, especially about the idea that the media are "enemies of the American people", fail to bring up the fact that the "fake news" and the "enemies of the people" are not the journalists themselves, but rather the management and ownership of the media. ..."
I posted this one to my facebook page three or four days ago. It's brilliant. I have a few comments. First, I disagree with the
analysis given by the fellow from the Duran in the introduction, something along the lines of "even Anderson Cooper was smirking
because Cohen was demolishing Boot so badly".
If you pay attention to the questions and statements, you find that Cooper is equally as unhinged as Boot is, first hammering
on the point that nobody knows what was discussed in the meeting, then after Cohen rattles off a list, Cooper shifts to the "you're
believing Vladimir Putin on this" tactic, a nail that Cohen wisely smashes with a hammering statement, "I don't want to shock
you, but I believe Vladimir Putin on several things."
Cooper continues to insist that the content of the meeting is unknown and unconfirmed, regardless of what Putin and Trump say.
The sheer hubris of journalists today is unprecedented and outrageous.
I do admit that Cooper shuts up after being schooled by Cohen a second and third time and after Boot makes the mistake of calling
Cohen an apologist for Putin and Russia. This leads me to a second point.
I'm somewhat puzzled why Trump and his people, when referring to the "fake news" and answering questions from hostile journalists,
especially about the idea that the media are "enemies of the American people", fail to bring up the fact that the "fake news"
and the "enemies of the people" are not the journalists themselves, but rather the management and ownership of the media.
\This would accomplish two important things, both necessary, in my opinion. First, it would put the front line journalists
into their correct place, telling them that they are really nothing but mouthpieces, and we know that the real decisions on content
are not made by them.
What a blow to their narcisstic self-esteem that would be!
Second, it would give the American people more information on how their consent is engineered, how the media has owners
who have an agenda, and that agenda is not related to improving the lives of the American people, or even keeping them informed
with accurate information.
Renowned Russia scholar Stephen Cohen, a known skeptic of the 'Russia attacked America in 2016' narrative favored by some political
circles, lectured neocon pundit Max Boot after he called him a "Russia apologist" on CNN. The two men with opposing views on whether
Russia should be considered a threat to the US clashed during a panel hosted by CNN's Anderson Cooper, who asked if the American
people should be concerned about US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had a two-hour meeting behind
closed doors during a summit in Helsinki, with only their two interpreters to witness the conversation.
Boot, an outspoken 'Never Trump' neoconservative who openly joined the #Resistance and got a Washington Post column recently,
said there was something "scary" about the situation. The established wisdom among the #Resistance pundits is that Putin is
somehow controlling Trump and that the secret meeting in the Finnish capital was all about the US president selling his country's
interest to the Kremlin.
Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at NYU and Princeton, said there was nothing unusual about two heads of state meeting
behind closed doors. He added people could get an idea or two about what was said at the meeting from public statements made by Putin.
As both Boot and Cooper pointed out that it would require trusting Putin's word on it, Cohen said: "I don't want to shock you,
but I believe Vladimir Putin on several things."
The professor offered a parallel to what happened after similar one-on-one talks between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in
Reykjavik, in 1986, which eventually led to partial nuclear disarmament. Even some conservatives who today worship Reagan as a hero
branded him a "useful idiot"
then, for signing the INF treaty with the USSR.
Boot brought up Trump's willingness to negotiate with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, which he said would fit Trump's pattern
of behavior, threatening leaders before talking to them.
"The striking thing to me is though he is willing to threaten North Korea, he is willing to threaten Iran, he never threatens
Russia. And that's why a lot of intelligence officials think that there is something highly suspect in the relationship between Putin
and Trump," Boot said, apparently failing to recall how Trump
literally threatened Putin with American
missiles over Syria.
"I have no idea what Mr. Boot is talking about," Cohen replied. "He wants Trump to threaten Russia? Why would we threaten
Russia?"
"Because they are attacking us!" the agitated Boot cut the scholar off. "Russia is attacking us, Mr Cohen! Russia is
attacking us right now, according to Trump's own director of national intelligence!"
"I've been studying Russia for 45 years," Cohen said, only to be interrupted by Boot, who claimed Cohen has been "consistently
an apologist for Russia those 45 years." The scholar apparently couldn't believe the debate sank to personal attacks, because
he asked Boot to repeat what he just said.
"I don't do defamation of people, I do serious analysis of serious national security problems," the professor said.
"When people like you call people like me, and not only me, but people more eminent than me, apologists for Russia because we don't
agree with your analysis, you are criminalizing diplomacy and detente and you are the threat to American national security, end of
story."
"Why do you have to defame somebody you don't agree with?" Cohen continued. "They used to do that in the old Soviet
Union. We don't do that here. Well, we used to, but we need to stop it."
Boot laughed as Cooper tried to regain control of the discussion, asking Cohen if he believed Russia attacked the US in 2016.
As he tried to explain why he didn't, Boot cut him off again.
"You just denied being an apologist for Russia. You are apologizing for Russia as we speak," he said.
"Will you let me finish? You don't know what I am going to say," Cohen said after a pause. Then he argued that the US and
Russia have been meddling in each other's affairs since after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. The US actually sent troops to get involved
in the Russian civil war, he reminded. The alleged Russian meddling "is not an attack, it is not 9/11, it is not Pearl Harbor.
It is not Russian paratroopers descending on Washington," he said.
As one comment says " @MaxBoot got Cohen's boot"
in this debate with Professor Stephen Cohen on
@andersoncooper 's show. By debate I mean
of course that Cooper sides with his neo-con guest the whole time: https://t.co/TSeienbseI
"I think that Mr Boot would have been happy if Trump had waterboarded Putin at the summit and made him confess," Cohen
said. "Trump carried out an act of diplomacy fully consistent with the history of American presidency. Let us see what comes out
of it, then judge."
Subscribe to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media won't
tell you.
"... The European Commission, if you're talking about the 2008 war, the European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia, which was backed by the United States, fighting with an American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that he began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin, which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and Obama's best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia. ..."
"... So that- Russia didn't begin that war. And it didn't begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by [continents], the overthrow of the Ukrainian president in [20]14 after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to happen. And I think it happened within 36 hours. The Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and betrayed. They use this word, predatl'stvo, betrayal, about American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when it wasn't just President George Bush, all the documents have been published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union that under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two inches to the east. ..."
"... If you want to know what obsesses Putin, it's the word 'sovereignty.' Russia lost its sovereignty- political, foreign policy, security, financial- in the 1990s. Putin saw his mission, as I read him, and I try to read him as a biographer. He says a lot, to regain Russia's sovereignty, which meant to make the country whole again at home, to rescue its people, and to protect its defenses. That's been his mission. Has it been more than that? Maybe. But everything he's done, as I see it, has followed that concept of his role in history. And he's done pretty well. ..."
"... "Facts don't matter in broadcast journalism". Good interview. Cohen always surprises me with something he says, and he doesn't disappoint me here in this regard. A healthy readjustment of our perspective is occasionally called for. How true the adage, "The first casualty in any war is the truth". ..."
AARON MATE: It's The Real News. I'm Aaron Mate. This is part two with Stephen Cohen,
professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton. In part one we
talked about the uproar over the Trump-Putin summit, and Trump's comments about the U.S.
intelligence community and about cooperation with Russia. Now in part two we're going to get to
some of the main talking points that have been pervasive throughout corporate media, talking
about the stated reasons for why pundits and politicians say they are opposed to Trump sitting
down with Putin.
So let me start with Jon Meacham. He is a historian. And speaking to CNN, he worried that
Trump, with his comments about NATO calling on the alliance to pay more, and calling into
question, he worried about the possibility that Trump won't come to the aid of Baltic states in
the event that Russia invades.
JON MEACHAM: And what worries me most is the known unknown, as Donald Rumsfeld might
put it, of what happens next. Let's say Putin- just look at this whole week of the last five,
six days in total. What happens if Putin launches military action against, say, the Baltics?
What, what is it that President Trump, what about his comments that NATO suggest thar he would
follow an invocation of Article 5 and actually project American force in defense of the values
that not only do we have an intellectual and moral assent to, but a contractual one, a treaty
one. I think that's the great question going forward.
AARON MATE: OK. So that's Jon Meacham speaking to CNN. So, Professor Cohen, putting
aside what he said there about our intellectual values and strong tradition, just on the issue
of Trump, of Putin posing a potential threat and possibly invading the Baltics, is that a
realistic possibility?
STEPHEN COHEN: So, I'm not sure what you're asking me about. The folly of NATO
expansion? The fact that every president in my memory has asked the Europeans to pay more? But
can we be real? Can we be real? The only country that's attacked that region of Europe
militarily since the end of the Soviet Union was the United States of America. As I recall, we
bombed Serbia, a, I say this so people understand, a traditional Christian country, under Bill
Clinton, bombed Serbia for about 80 days. There is no evidence that Russia has ever bombed a
European country.
You tell me, Aaron. You must be a smart guy, because you got your own television show. Why
would Putin want to launch a military attack and occupy the Baltics? So he has to pay the
pensions there? Which he's having a hard time already paying in Russia, and therefore has had
to raise the pension age, and thereby lost 10 percentage points of popularity in two weeks? Why
in the world can we, can we simply become rational people. Why in the world would Russia want
to attack and occupy Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia? The only reason I can think of is that
many, many of my friends love to take their summer vacations there. And maybe some crazy person
thinks that if we occupy it, vacations will be cheaper. It's crazy. It's beyond crazy. It's a
kind-.
AARON MATE: Professor Cohen, if you were on CNN right now I imagine that the anchor
would say to you, well, okay, but one could say the same thing about Georgia in 2008. Why did
Russia attack Georgia then?
STEPHEN COHEN: I'm not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The European
Commission, if you're talking about the 2008 war, the European Commission, investigating what
happened, found that Georgia, which was backed by the United States, fighting with an
American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly unpredictable Georgian
president then, Saakashvili, that he began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the
Kremlin, which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and Obama's best
friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any
leader in any country would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border
through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what essentially were kind of Russian
protectorate areas of Georgia.
So that- Russia didn't begin that war. And it didn't begin the one in Ukraine, either.
We did that by [continents], the overthrow of the Ukrainian president in [20]14 after President
Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to happen. And I think it happened within 36
hours. The Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and betrayed. They use
this word, predatl'stvo, betrayal, about American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when it
wasn't just President George Bush, all the documents have been published by the National
Security Archive in Washington, all the leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet
Union that under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be NATO, NATO would
not, in the famous expression, move two inches to the east.
Now NATO is sitting on Russia's borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So Russians aren't
fools, and they're good-hearted, but they become resentful. They're worried about being
attacked by the United States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily, we are
under attack by the United States. And this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap
that is being put out that Russia somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been sleeping. I
didn't see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is reckless, dangerous, warmongering talk. It
needs to stop. Russia has a better case for saying they've been attacked by us since 1991. We
put our military alliance on the front door. Maybe it's not an attack, but it looks like one,
feels like one. Could be one.
AARON MATE: OK. And in a moment I want to speak to you more about Ukraine, because
we've heard Crimea invoked a lot in the criticism of Putin of late. But first I want to
actually to ask you about a domestic issue. This one is it's widely held that Putin is
responsible for the killing of journalists and opposition activists who oppose him. And on this
front I want to play for you a clip of Joe Cirincione. He is the head of the Ploughshares Fund.
And this is what he said this week in an appearance on Democracy Now!.
JOE CIRINCIONE: Both of these men are dangerous. Both of these men oppress basic
human rights, basic freedoms. Both of them think the press are the enemy of the people. Putin
goes further. He kills journalists. He has them assassinated on the streets of Moscow.
Donald Trump does not go that far yet. But I think what Putin is doing is using the
president of the United States to project his rule, to increase his power, to carry out his
agenda in Syria, with Europe, et cetera, and that Trump is acquiescing to that for reasons that
are not yet clear.
AARON MATE: That's Joe Cirincione.
STEPHEN COHEN: I know him well. It's worse than that. It's worse than that.
AARON MATE: Well Yes. There's two issues here, Professor Cohen. One is the state of
the crackdown on press freedoms in Russia, which I'm sure you would say is very much alive, and
is a strong part of the Russian system. But let's first address this widely-held view that
Putin is responsible for killing journalists who are critical of him.
STEPHEN COHEN: I know I'm supposed to follow your lead, but I think you're skipping
over a major point. How is it that Joe, who was once one of our most eminent and influential,
eloquent opponents of nuclear arms race, who was prepared to have the president of the United
States negotiate with every Soviet communist leader, including those who had a lot of blood on
their hands, now decide that Putin kills everybody and he's not a worthy partner? What happened
to Joe?
I'll tell you what happened to him. Trump. Trump has driven once-sensible people completely
crazy. Moreover, Joe knows absolutely nothing about internal Russian politics, and he ought to
follow my rule. When I don't know something about something, I say I don't know. But what he
just said is ludicrous. And the sad part is-.
AARON MATE: But it's widely held. If it's ludicrous-. But widely held, yeah.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, the point is that once distinguished and important spokespeople
for rightful causes, like ending a nuclear arms race, have been degraded, or degraded
themselves by saying things like he said to the point that they're of utility today only to the
proponents of a new nuclear arms race. And he's not alone. Somebody called it Trump derangement
syndrome. I'm not a psychiatrist, but it's a widespread mania across our land. And when good
people succumb to it, we are all endangered.
AARON MATE: But many people would be surprised to hear that, because again, the
stories that we get, and there are human rights reports, and it's just sort of taken as a given
fact that Putin is responsible for killing journalists. So if that's ludicrous, if you can
explain why you think that is.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, I got this big problem which seems to afflict very few people in
public life anymore. I live by facts. I'm like my doctor, who told me not long ago I had to
have minor surgery for a problem I didn't even know I had. And I said, I'm not going to do it.
Show me the facts. And he did. I had the minor surgery. Journalists no longer seem to care
about facts. They repeat tabloid rumors. Putin kills everybody.
All I can tell you is this. I have never seen any evidence whatsoever, and I've been- I knew
some of the people who were killed. Anna Politkovskaya, the famous journalist for Novaya Gazeta
was the first, I think, who was- Putin was accused of killing. I knew her well. She was right
here, in this apartment. Look behind me, right here. She was here with my wife, Katrina vanden
Huevel. I wouldn't say we were close friends, but we were associates in Moscow, and we were
social friends. And I mourn her assassination today. But I will tell you this, that neither her
editors at that newspaper, nor her family, her surviving sons, think Putin had anything to do
with the killing. No evidence has ever been presented. Only media kangaroo courts that Putin
was involved in these high-profile assassinations, two of the most famous being this guy
Litvinenko by polonium in London, about the time Anna was killed, and more recently Boris
Nemtsov, whom, it's always said, was walking within the view of the Kremlin when he was shot.
Well, you could see the Kremlin from miles away. I don't know what within the view- unless they
think Putin was, you know, watching it through binoculars. There is no evidence that Putin ever
ordered the killing of anybody outside his capacity as commander in chief. No evidence.
Now, did he? But we live, Aaron, and I hope the folks who watch us remember this. Every
professional person, every decent person lives or malpractices based on verified facts. You go
down the wrong way on a one-way street, you might get killed. You take some medication that's
not prescribed for you, you might die. You pursue foreign policies based on fiction, you're
likely to get in war. And all these journalists, from the New York Times to the Washington
Post, from MSNBC to CNN who churn out daily these allegations that Putin kills people are
disgracing themselves. I will give you one fact. Wait. One fact, and you could look it up, as
Casey Stengel used to say. He was a baseball manager, in case you don't know.
There's an organization called the Committee to Protect American Journalists. It's kind of
iconic. It does good things, it says unwise things. Go on its website and look at the number of
Russian journalists killed since 1991, since the end of the Soviet Union, under two leaders.
Boris Yeltsin, whom we dearly loved and still mourn, and Putin, whom we hate. Last time I
looked, the numbers may have changed, more were killed under Yeltsin than under Putin. Did
Putin kill those in the 1990s?
So you should ask me, why did they die, then? And I can tell you the main reason. Corrupt
business. Mafia-like business in Russia. Just like happened in the United States during our
primitive accumulation days. Profit seekers killed rivals. Killed them dead in the streets.
Killed them as demonstrations, as demonstrative acts. The only thing you could say about Putin
is that he might have created an atmosphere that abets that sort of thing. To which I would
say, maybe, but originally it was created with the oligarchical class under Boris Yeltsin, who
remains for us the most beloved Russian leader in history. So that's the long and the short of
it. Go look at the listing on the Committee to Protect Journalists.
AARON MATE: OK. So, following up on that, to what extent- and this gets a bit into
history, which you've covered extensively in your writings. To what extent are we here in the
West responsible for the creation of that Russian oligarchal class that you mentioned? But
also, what is Putin's relationship to it now, today? Does he abet it? Is he entrenched in it?
We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the richest person in the world as a result of his
entanglement with the very corruption of Russia you're speaking about. So both our role in
creating that problem in Russia, but then also Putin's role now in terms of his relationship to
it.
STEPHEN COHEN: I'm going to give you a quick, truncated, scholarly, historical
perspective on this. But this is what people should begin with when they think about Vladimir
Putin and his 18 years in power. Putin came to power almost accidentally in 2000. He inherited
a country whose state had collapsed twice in the 20th century. You've got to think about that.
How many states have collapsed that you know of once? But the Russian state, Russian statehood,
had collapsed once in 1917 during the revolution, and again in 1991 when the Soviet Union
ended. The country was in ruination; 75 percent of the people were in poverty.
Putin said- and this obsesses him. If you want to know what obsesses Putin, it's the
word 'sovereignty.' Russia lost its sovereignty- political, foreign policy, security,
financial- in the 1990s. Putin saw his mission, as I read him, and I try to read him as a
biographer. He says a lot, to regain Russia's sovereignty, which meant to make the country
whole again at home, to rescue its people, and to protect its defenses. That's been his
mission. Has it been more than that? Maybe. But everything he's done, as I see it, has followed
that concept of his role in history. And he's done pretty well.
Now, I can give you all Putin's minuses very easily. I would not care for him to be my
president. But let me tell you one other thing that's important. You evaluate nations within
their own history, not within ours. If you asked me if Putin is a democrat, and I will answer
you two ways. He thinks he has. And compared to what? Compared to the leader of Egypt? Yeah, he
is a democrat. Compared to the rulers of our pals in the Gulf states, he is a democrat.
Compared to Bill Clinton? No, he's not a Democrat. I mean, Russia-. Countries are on their own
historical clock. And you have to judge Putin in terms of his predecessors. So people think
Putin is a horrible leader. Did you prefer Brezhnev? Did you prefer Stalin? Did you prefer
Andropov? Compared to what? Please tell me, compared to what.
And by the way, that's how that's how Russians-. You want to know why he's so popular in
Russia? Because Russians judge him in the context of their own what they call "zhivaya
istoriya" (living history); what we call autobiography. In terms of their own lives, he looks
pretty darn good. They complain out about him. We sit in the kitchen and they bitch about Putin
all the time. But they don't want him to go away.
AARON MATE: All right. Well, on that front, we're going to wrap this up there.
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton. His
books include "Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Soviet Russia," and "Soviet
Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War." Professor Cohen, thank
you.
STEPHEN COHEN: You forgot one book.
AARON MATE: I did not say I was reading your, your complete bibliography.
STEPHEN COHEN: It's called-. It's called "Confessions of a Holy Fool."
AARON MATE: Is that true? Or are you making a joke.
STEPHEN COHEN: Somewhere in between. [Thank you, Aaron.]
AARON MATE: Professor Cohen, thank you. And thank you for joining us on The Real
News.
"Facts don't matter in broadcast journalism". Good interview. Cohen always
surprises me with something he says, and he doesn't disappoint me here in this regard. A
healthy readjustment of our perspective is occasionally called for. How true the adage,
"The first casualty in any war is the truth".
best interview with Professor Cohen, and love his and Max Blumenthal for that matter
their wonderful American-Jewish humor. And The Real News you've got to invite on and do a
Reality Asserts Itself with Mark Ames who along with Matt Taibbi and Yasha Levine (who
all speak Russian and can read in Russian) can like Professor Cohen sort out all the
bullshit, half truths, and infinite propaganda on Putin,his opponents in the West and
Russia and Russia's foreign policy. Garry Kasporov is no liberal reformer he wants rival
oligarchs to take over and thinks Bernie Sanders's vision of socialism is tyranny and
wants Russia to be a partner to the West in overthrowing Assad, Chavez later Maduro in
Venezuela, sanctions of mass destruction on North Korea and supports The Anti-Russia
hysteria and scapegoating of the DNC-Clinton-Wikileaks scandal. Boris Nemestov was a
rival oligarch who supported Yelstin and his worst policies in Russia, he himself like
Kasporov who CNN and Christane Amanpour love was no liberal/socialist reformer
https://pando.com/2015/03/0... .
Lastly Alexei Navalny who the Guardian, BBC, and Theocracy Now (since Democracy Now
supports Islamist front groups the West and Gulf States support in Syria known as the
White Helmets) adore, he's also a rival oligarch who support RIVAL NEO-NAZI and Christian
conservative groups in Russia.
here is a link and here he is click on the youtube link Mark Ames's provides in which
he compares Muslims to cockroaches who need to be exterminated like in Men in Black (he
was arguing for Russia to loosen the gun laws so they can be shot)
http://exiledonline.com/rus... and
Decimation of anti-war forces and flourishing of Russophobia are two immanent features of the US neoliberalism. As long as
the maintinace fo the US global neoliberal empire depends of weakening and, possibly, dismembering Russia it is naive to expect any
change. Russian version of soft "national neoliberalism" is not that different, in principle form Trump version of hard
"netional neoliberalism" so those leaders might have something to talk about. In other words as soon as the USA denounce
neoliberal globalization that might be some openings.
Ten ways the new US-Russian Cold War is increasingly becoming more dangerous than the one we survived.
The political epicenter of the new Cold War is not in far-away Berlin, as it was from the late 1940s on, but directly on
Russia's borders, from the Baltic states and Ukraine to the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Each of these new Cold War fronts
is, or has recently been, fraught with the possibly of hot war. US-Russian military relations are especially tense today in the Baltic
region, where a large-scale NATO buildup is under way, and in Ukraine, where a US-Russian proxy war is intensifying. The "Soviet
Bloc" that once served as a buffer between NATO and Russia no longer exists. And many imaginable incidents on the West's new Eastern
Front, intentional or unintentional, could easily trigger actual war between the United States and Russia. What brought about this
unprecedented situation on Russia's borders -- at least since the Nazi German invasion in 1941 -- was, of course, the exceedingly
unwise decision, in the late 1990s, to expand NATO eastward. Done in the name of "security," it has made all the states involved
only more insecure.
Proxy wars were a feature of the old Cold War, but usually small ones in what was called the "Third World" -- in Africa,
for example -- and they rarely involved many, if any, Soviet or American personnel, mostly only money and weapons. Today's US-Russian
proxy wars are different, located in the center of geopolitics and accompanied by too many American and Russian trainers, minders,
and possibly fighters. Two have already erupted: in Georgia in 2008, where Russian forces fought a Georgian army financed, trained,
and minded by American funds and personnel; and in Syria, where in February
scores
of Russians were killed by US-backed anti-Assad forces . Moscow did not retaliate, but it has pledged to do so if there is "a
next time," as there very well may be. If so, this would in effect be war directly between Russia and America. Meanwhile, the risk
of such a direct conflict continues to grow in Ukraine, where the country's US-backed but politically failing President Petro Poroshenko
seems increasingly tempted to launch another all-out military assault on rebel-controlled Donbass, backed by Moscow. If he does so,
and the assault does not quickly fail as previous ones have, Russia will certainly intervene in eastern Ukraine with a truly tangible
"invasion." Washington will then have to make a fateful war-or-peace decision. Having already reneged on its commitments to the Minsk
Accords, which are the best hope for ending the four-year Ukrainian crisis peacefully, Kiev seems to have an unrelenting impulse
to be a tail wagging the dog of war. Certainly, its capacity for provocations and disinformation are second to none, as evidenced
again last week by the faked "assassination and resurrection" of the journalist Arkady Babchenko.
The Western, but especially American, years-long demonization of the Kremlin leader, Putin, is also unprecedented. Too
obvious to reiterate here, no Soviet leader, at least since Stalin, was ever subjected to such prolonged, baseless, crudely derogatory
personal vilification. Whereas Soviet leaders were generally regarded as acceptable negotiating partners for American presidents,
including at major summits, Putin has been made to seem to be an illegitimate national leader -- at best "a KGB thug," at worst a
murderous "mafia boss."
Still more, demonizing Putin has generated a
widespread Russophobic vilification
of Russia itself , or what The New York Times and other mainstream-media outlets have taken to calling "
Vladimir Putin's Russia ." Yesterday's enemy was Soviet Communism. Today it is increasingly Russia, thereby also delegitimizing
Russia as a great power with legitimate national interests. "The Parity Principle," as Cohen termed it during the preceding Cold
War -- the principle that both sides had legitimate interests at home and abroad, which was the basis for diplomacy and negotiations,
and symbolized by leadership summits -- no longer exists, at least on the American side. Nor does the acknowledgment that both sides
were to blame, at least to some extent, for that Cold War. Among influential American observers
who at least
recognize the reality of the new Cold War , "Putin's Russia" alone is to blame. When there is no recognized parity and shared
responsibility, there is little space for diplomacy -- only for increasingly militarized relations, as we are witnessing today.
Meanwhile, most of the Cold War safeguards -- cooperative mechanisms and mutually observed rules of conduct that evolved
over decades in order to prevent superpower hot war -- have been vaporized or badly frayed since the Ukrainian crisis in 2014,
as the
UN General Secretary António Guterres, almost alone, has recognized : "The Cold War is back -- with a vengeance but with a difference.
The mechanisms and the safeguards to manage the risks of escalation that existed in the past no longer seem to be present." Trump's
recent missile strike on Syria carefully avoided killing any Russians there, but here too Moscow has vowed to retaliate against US
launchers or other forces involved if there is a "next time," as, again, there may be. Even the decades-long process of arms control
may, we are told by an
expert , be coming to an "end." If so, it will mean an unfettered new nuclear-arms race but also the termination of an ongoing
diplomatic process that buffered US-Soviet relations during very bad political times. In short, if there are any new Cold War rules
of conduct, they are yet to be formulated and mutually accepted. Nor does this semi-anarchy take into account the new warfare technology
of cyber-attacks. What are its implications for the secure functioning of existential Russian and American nuclear command-and-control
and early-warning systems that guard against an accidental launching of missiles still on high alert?
Russiagate allegations that the American president has been compromised by -- or is even an agent of -- the Kremlin are
also without precedent. These allegations have had profoundly dangerous consequences, among them the nonsensical but mantra-like
warfare declaration that "Russia attacked America" during the 2016 presidential election; crippling assaults on President Trump every
time he speaks with Putin in person or by phone; and making both Trump and Putin so toxic that even most politicians, journalists,
and professors who understand the present-day dangers are reluctant to speak out against US contributions to the new Cold War.
Mainstream-media outlets have, of course, played a woeful role in all of this. Unlike in the past, when pro-détente
advocates had roughly equal access to mainstream media, today's new Cold War media enforce their orthodox narrative that Russia is
solely to blame. They practice not diversity of opinion and reporting but "confirmation bias." Alternative voices (with, yes, alternative
or opposing facts) rarely appear any longer in the most influential mainstream newspapers or on television or radio broadcasts. One
alarming result is that "disinformation" generated by or pleasing to Washington and its allies has consequences before it can be
corrected. The fake Babchenko assassination (allegedly ordered by Putin, of course) was quickly exposed, but not the alleged Skripal
assassination attempt in the UK, which led to the largest US expulsion of Russian diplomats in history before London's official version
of the story began to fall apart. This too is unprecedented: Cold War without debate, which in turn precludes the frequent rethinking
and revising of US policy that characterized the preceding 40-year Cold War -- in effect, an enforced dogmatization of US policy
that is both exceedingly dangerous and undemocratic.
Equally unsurprising, and also very much unlike during the 40-year Cold War, there is virtually no significant opposition
in the American mainstream to the US role in the new Cold War -- not in the media, not in Congress, not in the two major political
parties, not in the universities, not at grassroots levels. This too is unprecedented, dangerous, and contrary to real democracy.
Consider only the thunderous silence of scores of large US corporations that have been doing profitable business in post-Soviet Russia
for years, from fast-food chains and automobile manufacturers to pharmaceutical and energy giants. And contrast their behavior to
that of CEOs of PepsiCo, Control Data, IBM, and other major American corporations seeking entry to the Soviet market in the 1970s
and 1980s, when they publicly supported and even funded pro-détente organizations and politicians. How to explain the silence of
their counterparts today, who are usually so profit-motivated? Are they too fearful of being labeled "pro-Putin" or possibly "pro-Trump"?
If so, will this Cold War continue to unfold with only very rare profiles of courage in any high places? 9. And then there is the
widespread escalatory myth that today's Russia, unlike the Soviet Union, is too weak -- its economy too small and fragile, its leader
too "isolated in international affairs" -- to wage a sustained Cold War, and that eventually Putin, who is "punching above his weight,"
as the cliché has it, will capitulate. This too is a dangerous delusion.
As Cohen has shown previously ,
"Putin's Russia" is hardly isolated in world affairs, and is becoming even less so, even in Europe, where at least five governments
are tilting away from Washington and Brussels and perhaps from their economic sanctions on Russia. Indeed, despite the sanctions,
Russia's energy industry and agricultural exports are flourishing. Geopolitically, Moscow has many military and related advantages
in regions where the new Cold War has unfolded. And no state with Russia's modern nuclear and other weapons is "punching above its
weight." Above all, the great majority of Russian people have rallied behind Putin because t
hey believe
their country is under attack by the US-led West . Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Russia's history understands it is
highly unlikely to capitulate under any circumstances.
Finally (at least as of now), there is the growing war-like "hysteria" often commented on in both Washington and Moscow. It
is driven by various factors, but television talk/"news" broadcasts, which are as common in Russia as in the United States, play
a major role. Perhaps only an extensive quantitative study could discern which plays a more lamentable role in promoting this frenzy
-- MSNBC and CNN or their Russian counterparts. For Cohen, the Russian dark witticism seems apt: "Both are worst" ( Oba khuzhe
). Again, some of this American broadcast extremism existed during the preceding Cold War, but almost always balanced, even
offset, by truly informed, wiser opinions, which are now largely excluded.
Is this analysis of the dangers inherent in the new Cold War itself extremist or alarmist? Even SOME usually reticent specialists
would seem to agree with Cohen's general assessment. Experts gathered by a centrist Washington think tank
thought that on a scale of 1 to 10,
there is a 5 to 7 chance of actual war with Russia. A former head of British M16 is
reported as saying
that "for the first time in living memory, there's a realistic chance of a superpower conflict." And a respected retired Russian
general tells
the same think tank that any military confrontation "will end up with the use of nuclear weapons between the United States and
Russia."
In today's dire circumstances, one Trump-Putin summit cannot eliminate the new Cold War dangers. But US-Soviet summits traditionally
served three corollary purposes. They created a kind of security partnership -- not a conspiracy -- that involved each leader's limited
political capital at home, which the other should recognize and not heedlessly jeopardize. They sent a clear message to the two leaders'
respective national-security bureaucracies, which often did not favor détente-like cooperation, that the "boss" was determined and
that they must end their foot-dragging, even sabotage. And summits, with their exalted rituals and intense coverage, usually improved
the media-political environment needed to enhance cooperation amid Cold War conflicts. If a Trump-Putin summit achieves even some
of those purposes, it might result in a turning away from the precipice that now looms
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually)
weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (You can find previous installments of these conversations, now in their fifth
year, at TheNation.com .)
Baseless and reckless tropes about Russia, Cohen points out, have proliferated in the US political-media establishment during
the new Cold War, and even more since Russiagate allegations began to circulate widely two years ago, in mid-2016. The worst of these
tropes -- in effect an incitement to war -- is that "Russia attacked America during the 2016 presidential election." But there are
others equally unfounded and almost as detrimental to Washington policy-making. Among them, as The Economist and The
New York Times recently asserted, are that on today's "world stage"
Russian President Vladimir Putin is a "pariah" and his country "
isolated from the
international community ." Indeed, the Times insisted, quoting a British intelligence chief, that Russia is "
becoming a
'more isolated pariah.' "
These assertions are so detached from geopolitical realities that they may be expressions of some Putin-Russia Derangement Syndrome,
as others have suggested. Consider only last week's St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an annual event conceived by the
Kremlin as a kind of Russian Davos. By most media accounts, including non-Russian ones, it was the best attended and most successful
since 2014, when the West began imposing escalating economic sanctions on the country. Leaders of France, Japan, China, India, Saudi
Arabia, and scores of less consequential states were there, along with innumerable international corporate executives, the director
of the International Monetary Fund, and the president of Boeing, who declared that Russia "
is a place for long-term partnership ." Judging by press reports, television footage, and transcripts of meetings, virtually
all of them were eager for close encounters with the "pariah" Putin. Indeed, just prior to the event, Chancellor Angela Merkel and
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Sochi to meet separately with Putin. Again, all this against the backdrop of new
financial and diplomatic sanctions rained on Russia by London and Washington and very perfunctory, if at all, implemented by their
European "allies."
In reality, it is impossible to isolate Russia, the planet's largest territorial and most natural-resource rich nation. There
is no "global politics," no "world order," without Russia. Its natural gas and oil resources, carried west and east through its far-flung
networks of pipelines -- both existing ones and those under construction -- make such an effort an epic geopolitical folly. So too
does Moscow's political-diplomatic influence in vital regions, from Europe, China, and Afghanistan to the Middle East. (Consider
its crucial role, for example, in any crisis-resolution involving Iran or North Korea.) Much of this is due not primarily to Moscow's
modernized conventional and nuclear weapons but to its foreign-policy philosophy under Putin. Simply put but often elaborated: In
accord with national sovereignty, we are ready for good relations with any government that seeks good relations with us. Contrast
this with Washington's longstanding ideological, highly militarized, and often hegemony-aspiring foreign-policy tenets.
As a result, unlike the Soviet Union, post-Soviet Russia has few, if any, unwilling allies, semi-allies, or partners in international
affairs. China and Iran are big and important allies. Semi-allies and occasional partners include India and, of course, the other
BRICs nations; Saudi Arabia, with whom Russia has cooperated in order to raise international oil prices; and Israel, whose prime
minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was an honored guest in Moscow for Russia's most sacred memorial holiday, Victory Day, on May 9. America's
European NATO allies may seem united in "isolating" Russia, but not the leaders of Hungary, the Czech Republic, or the president
of France. Indeed, Emmanuel Macron, again accompanied by his wife, did a mini-version of his effervescent socializing with President
Trump in Washington with Putin in St. Petersburg, while also signing a major energy deal with Russia and hoping that France will
become "
Russia's largest investor ." Another test of Europe's fidelity to the United States (and its devout UK partner) will come in
July, when EU sanctions on Russia must be continued or terminated. A single "no" vote will end them. Until now, Europe has been swayed
-- or coerced -- by Washington. But can the new government now being formed in Italy be made to conform, or other governments now
rebelling against Trump's renewed sanctions on Iran, with which not a few European companies have highly profitable business relations?
But can the new government now being formed in Italy be made to conform? And what of the other governments now rebelling against
Trump's renewed sanctions on Iran, a nation with which not a few European companies have highly profitable business relations? Is,
as an official Russian news agency hopes, an "anti-sanctions coalition" forming against the United States? If so, who would be isolated?
Washington and its allies have certainly tried to isolate "Putin's Russia." Hence the multiyear cascade of tantrum-like, pointless,
mostly ineffective, even counterproductive sanctions. In addition, whether by chance or intent, political campaigns have erupted
on the eve of Putin and Russia's emerging on "the world state" in ways that demonstrate their central role in international affairs.
Thus the media campaign to frighten away visitors to the 2014 Sochi Olympics with reports that terrorist and homophobic attacks were
certain to happen along with life-threatening mishaps due to "corrupt" construction. (None did.) Now, on the eve of the World Cup
championship in Russia, there is perhaps a predictable new series of US media reports suggesting that Russia should be treated as
a pariah nation: accounts of an attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in the UK, an official story that has almost completely
fallen apart, but not before having major diplomatic consequences
; a revived report that
Moscow was behind the shoot-down of a Malaysian passenger jetliner over Ukraine in 2014, but without any new actual evidence;
a revival of the malicious allegation that
Putin and Russia itself are "fascist," without a word, of course, about an epidemic of anti-Semitic episodes and armed neo-Nazis
in US-backed Ukraine; and a
prominent Times opinion article warning that "L.G.T.B. people" may be in danger during the World Cup games.
An argument about the extent to which Russia is or is not isolated in the world today may seem marginal given the looming dangers
inherent in the new Cold War. But even leaving aside the obscurant conceit that Washington and London are "the international community,"
it is indicative of the general degradation of American thinking and discourse about geopolitics and US foreign policy generally
in mainstream media and politics. (There are, of course, many exceptions outside the mainstream, especially in scholarly publications.)
Henry Kissinger once said, "The demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy. It is an alibi for not having one." The "isolated
pariah" trope is part of that demonizing. But Kissinger was partially wrong: Washington has had Russia policies in the Putin era
-- exceedingly ill-informed, unwise, and failed ones.
Eussiagete should be properly called Intelgate argues Professor Stephen F.Cohen. Halper and Mifsud invoke memories of Soviet surveillance
state.
Notable quotes:
"... But the issue is not President Trump, support him or not. It is instead twofold: our own civil liberties; and, in regard to the Russiagate allegations made against him as a candidate and now as president, or against others under investigation, the organizations and media that no longer profess nor defend these liberties as basic principles of American democracy. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Even if there was such a "multiyear conspiracy," for example, how does the Times ..."
"... Gen. Michael Flynn did nothing wrong or unusual in talking with the Russian ambassador to Washington in December 2016. Other presidents-elected have established such "back channels" to Moscow, including Richard Nixon and Barack Obama. Carter Page was not "recruited by Russian spies. " Russian agents tried to do so, but he helped the FBI expose and arrest them. And Paul Manafort had not, during the time in question, "lobbied for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine. " Instead, he urged that country's president to accept an EU trading agreement that Putin strongly opposed. ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... The new cult of Intel is a mainstream orthodoxy. ..."
"... Not a word about constitutional civil liberties in any of this media coverage, though surely the "informant" and "contacts" themes -- the Clinton-sponsored Center for American Progress has recently posted 70-plus purportedly suspicious "contacts" between Trump's people and Russia -- should have reminded some editors, writers, or producers about those practices during the McCarthy era. (For a powerful reminder, read former Nation ..."
"... Originally said to be a Russian intelligence "asset," some evidence has appeared that Mifsud actually worked for British intelligence. In any event, he has vanished. ) This should not surprise us. ..."
"... The Halper affair should compel each of us to decide whether or not top levels of US intelligence agencies -- what Cohen has been referring to as Intelgate -- have played an improper, or worse, role in what now may be the worst political crisis in modern American history: Russiagate. ..."
"... If I am not mistaken, by statute, the CIA is forbidden from operating in the United States itself. Not that that means much. Government a all levels seems to feel free to exceed their statutory and constitutional limits as they choose and nobody says BOO. What's the quickest way to destroy a society? Make compliance with the law discretionary for those of wealth and power. ..."
Intel 'Informants' and 'Suspicious Contacts' Echo Dark Pasts | The Nation
Stephen F.Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually)
weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War.
In February , Cohen asked if "Russiagate"
was largely "Intelgate," pointing to the roles then known to have been played by CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper.
The revelation about Halper, essentially an Intel undercover operative, is further evidence that US intelligence agencies were
deeply involved in the origins and promotion of Russiagate allegations of "collusion" between Trump and the Kremlin.
(We do not know if others were deployed covertly to "investigate" the Trump campaign, what the two agencies did with Halper's
information, or whether he was connected in any way to UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele and his "dossier.")
But the issue is not President Trump, support him or not. It is instead twofold: our own civil liberties; and, in regard to the
Russiagate allegations made against him as a candidate and now as president, or against others under investigation, the organizations
and media that no longer profess nor defend these liberties as basic principles of American democracy. (This may be another
by-product of what someone has called a "Trump Derangement Syndrome.") -- The ACLU, for example, seems not to have loudly protested
Intel or related transgressions in this regard, if at all. -- Still worse, in
two
articles and
an editorial , The New York Times unconditionally defended Halper's clandestine mission.
It did so by stating the underlying Russiagate narrative
as "facts" that
"aren't disputed": "There was a sophisticated, multiyear conspiracy by Russian government officials and agents, working under
direct orders from President Vladimir Putin, to interfere in the 2016 presidential election in support of Donald Trump.
" In fact, aspects of this narrative have been strongly questioned by a number of qualified critics, including Cohen, though their
questioning of it is never printed in the Times .
Even if there was such a "multiyear conspiracy," for example, how does the Times know it was carried out under Putin's
"direct orders"? In reality, that entire assumption is based solely on two seriously challenged sources: an "Intelligence Community
Assessment" of January 2017 and Steele's dossier.
But they are enough for the Times to assert that Halper's targets had "suspicious contacts linked to Russia" -- that
these Trump associates had "met with Russians or people linked to Russia. " Indeed, Times columnist Paul Krugman, once a
distinguished Princeton professor and Nobel Prize winner,
tweeted as Joseph McCarthy might have, calling
it "treason. " (These allegations are so vague and capacious they could apply to encounters with many New York City taxi drivers.
Certainly, they apply to Cohen himself, who has had scores of "meetings" and "contacts" with Russians over the years, including with
"Kremlin-linked" ones. ) Indicative of its malpractice in covering Russia and Russiagate, the Times then proceeds to commit
factual misrepresentations about three of Halper's targets.
Gen. Michael Flynn did nothing wrong or unusual in talking with the Russian ambassador to Washington in December 2016. Other
presidents-elected have established such "back channels" to Moscow, including Richard Nixon and Barack Obama. Carter Page was not
"recruited by Russian spies. " Russian agents tried to do so, but he helped the FBI expose and arrest them. And Paul Manafort had
not, during the time in question, "lobbied for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine. " Instead, he urged that country's president
to accept an EU trading agreement that Putin strongly opposed.
The Times ends by asserting that no information collected by Halper (or Steele) had been made public prior to the November
2016 election. In fact, an article alluding to such material was published as early as July 2016 by
Franklin Foer and subsequently by
Michael Isikoff and
David Corn .
The Times itself ran a number of insinuating "Trump-Putin" stories; accusatory opinion pieces by former Intel chiefs,
like the CIA's
Michael Morell and the NSA's
Michael Hayden ; and its own editorials prior to the election.
Indeed, the allegations were so well-known that in their August debate, Hillary Clinton accused Trump of being
Putin's "puppet."
-- Nor was the Times alone among media outlets that had once deplored civil-liberties violations but justified the Halper
operation.
The Washington Post also unconditionally did so, as in
a column by Eugene Robinson , who denounced critics of those Russiagate practices for "smearing veteran professionals" of the
agencies. Had they not dispatched Halper, Robinson added, it "would have been an appalling dereliction of duty. " Proponents of civil
liberties might consider his statement "appalling."
-- As usual, MSNBC and CNN were in accord with the Times and the Post. For instance,
CNN's Don Lemon summoned James Clapper
himself to vouch for Halper's undercover mission: "That's a good thing because the Russians pose a threat to the very basis our political
system. " Lemon did not question Clapper's rationalizing or perspective, nor did he book anyone who might have done so. The new
cult of Intel is a mainstream orthodoxy.
Not a word about constitutional civil liberties in any of this media coverage, though surely the "informant" and "contacts" themes
-- the Clinton-sponsored Center for American Progress has recently posted 70-plus purportedly suspicious "contacts" between Trump's
people and Russia -- should have reminded some editors, writers, or producers about those practices during the McCarthy era. (For
a powerful reminder, read former Nation editor and publisher Victor Navasky's widely acclaimed
Naming Names .)
But Cohen recalls instead the times he lived in Soviet Russia periodically from 1976 to 1982 when the authorities banned him from
the country (until Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985) among open dissidents and semi-closeted Communist Party nonconformists,
under Brezhnev's "vegetarian" surveillance state. Cohen's Soviet Russian friends called it "vegetarian" because the era of Stalin's
mass arbitrary arrests, torture, and executions had long passed. Suppression by the KGB now featured "softer" tactics, among them
clandestine informers and accusations of "contacts with American imperialism and the CIA.
"Cohen was quickly instructed by his Moscow friends how to detect informers or, in any case, to be ever mindful they might be
present even at intimate gatherings, even "friends. " And, as an American living among targeted individuals, he took every precaution
to avoid being that damning "contact. " Nonetheless, in the end, Cohen was cited by the KGB in cases against at least two prominent
dissidents, one jailed and the other hounded.(Both later became very prominent human-rights figures under Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin:
one as head of the human-rights organization Memorial, the other as the founder of Moscow's Museum of the History of the Gulag.)
Surveillance was, of course, very different and far more consequential in the generally repressive pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union than
in America today. But a number of episodes on both sides involved professors who were intelligence operatives. In the Russigate saga,
there is already Halper and the still-shadowy Professor Joseph Mifsud, who befriended the very minor, very inexperienced, and hapless
Trump "aide" George Papadopoulos. ( Originally said to be a Russian intelligence "asset," some evidence has appeared that Mifsud
actually worked for British intelligence. In any event, he has vanished. ) This should not surprise us. Not all American or
Russian intelligence officers are assassins, recruiters, or even spies. Some are highly qualified scholars who hold positions in
colleges and universities, as has been the case both in Russia and in the United States.
As a result, Cohen himself has had over the years personal -- yes -- "contacts" with several Soviet and post-Soviet "intelligence
officers. " Two held the rank of general, both were affiliated with higher-educational institutions (one as a professor), which is
where Cohen first met them. Another general headed the former KGB (now FSB) archives. The others, more junior, were working on their
doctoral dissertations (a prerequisite for advancement) in the same Stalin-era archive where Cohen was doing research for a book.
Cohen took many lunch and smoking breaks with them. Most of the discussions focused on knowledge about the Stalin Terror of the
1930s, though sometimes they did wander to current concerns -- including whether Cohen's native Kentucky bourbon was superior to
Russian vodka. No "suspicious" subjects ever came up.
The Halper affair should compel each of us to decide whether or not top levels of US intelligence agencies -- what Cohen has
been referring to as Intelgate -- have played an improper, or worse, role in what now may be the worst political crisis in modern
American history: Russiagate.
Whatever we decide, no one, especially proponents of the anti-Trump "Resistance," should forget a 20th-century political lesson:
The end rarely, if ever, justifies the means.
Intel 'Informants' and 'Suspicious Contacts' Echo Dark Pasts | The NationJeffrey Harrison says: May 23, 2018 at 6:21 pm
Thank you, Mr. Cohen. If I am not mistaken, by statute, the CIA is forbidden from operating in the United States itself. Not
that that means much. Government a all levels seems to feel free to exceed their statutory and constitutional limits as they choose
and nobody says BOO. What's the quickest way to destroy a society? Make compliance with the law discretionary for those of wealth
and power.
Clark M Shanahan says: May 23, 2018 at 10:18 pm
Trump is obviously one of our most repugnant presidents.
Yet, those turning a blind eye to this sad abuse of power should really worry about the future when our "intelligence" turns against
their own beliefs/values.
Did our forever obliging Obama sign off on this BS?
"obliging" to our Strangeloves and "security apparatus"..
n that Cohen tries to stay clear of anything outside his expertise, Russian history and
geopolitics. Several times I've heard him fondly reminisce about being raised in Kentucky. So
he may not be a complete Upper West Side liberal.
Serious suggestion for you read Gorbachev, His Life and Times by William Taubman
Taubman is prof at Amherst also wrote "Nikita Khruschev" which won a Pulitzer
Also excellent is Stephen F Cohen, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist
Russia
In USA people say "everyone is entitled to an opinion", so maybe you are entitled to your
view.
In England, they say "you are not qualified to have an opinion", and maybe they are right
about your views on Gorbachev, because I do not believe you have informed yourself about the
Gorbachev era.
Please read these books and then tell us if your view is influenced by what they say. I
found all of them free online, do you know where/how to look for them? Any decent library will
have them.
"... People such as Stephen Cohen and myself, who were actively involved throughout the entirety of the Cold War, are astonished at the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the US government and its European vassals toward Russia. ..."
"... In this brief video, Stephen Cohen describes to Tucker Carlson the extreme danger of the present situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvK1Eu01Lz0 Published on Apr 13, 2018 ..."
A normal person would answer "yes" to the three questions. So what does this tell us about
Trump's government as these insane actions are the principle practice of Trump's
government?
Does anyone doubt that Nikki Haley is insane?
Does anyone doubt that John Bolton is insane?
Does anyone doubt that Mike Pompeo is insane?
Does this mean that Trump is insane for appointing to the top positions insane people who
foment war with a nuclear power?
Does this mean that Congress is insane for approving these appointments?
These are honest questions. Assuming we avoid the Trump-promised Syrian showdown, how long
before the insane Trump regime orchestrates another crisis?
The entire world should understand that because of the existence of the insane Trump regime,
the continued existence of life on earth is very much in question.
People such as Stephen Cohen and myself, who were actively involved throughout the entirety
of the Cold War, are astonished at the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the US government
and its European vassals toward Russia. Nothing as irresponsible as what we have witnessed
since the Clinton regime and which has worsened dramatically under the Obama and Trump regimes
would have been imaginable during the Cold War. In this brief video, Stephen Cohen describes to
Tucker Carlson the extreme danger of the present situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvK1Eu01Lz0
Published on Apr 13, 2018
The failure of political leadership throughout the Western world is total. Such total
failure is likely to prove deadly to life on earth.
This is a fight to save Us led global neoliberal empire. Nothing more nothing less. Cohen is
right about connections between Skripal case and Russiagate. Skripal case is a British attempt to
save Russiagate.
Notable quotes:
"... Diplomacy kept the nuclear peace during the preceding Cold War, but the mass expulsions -- even pending the Kremlin's response -- seriously undermines the diplomatic process. They even criminalize it, as illustrated by denunciations of Trump's phone conversation with Putin and by widespread political-media demands after he expelled a large number of Russia's diplomats that he do "more" -- such demands ranging from more sanctions on Russia to more military responses in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere -- to prove he is not under Putin's control. ..."
"... Identifying all expelled diplomats as "intelligence officers" is also misleading. Posting intelligence officers as diplomats has long been a mutual de facto arrangement tacitly, if not explicitly, agreed upon and known by both sides. Moreover, the designation might apply to embassy officials who study the other country's economic, social, cultural, or political life. They gather and report "information." ..."
"... Recently, US-backed proxies apparently killed a number of Russian citizens also operating there. The Kremlin, through its Ministry of Defense, issued an ominous warning: If this happens again, Moscow will strike militarily not only at the proxies but also at US forces in the region who provided the weapons and launched the missiles. The same razor's edge could easily occur where the United States and Russia are also eyeball-to-eyeball, as in Ukraine or the Baltic region. (Again, as Trump is being crippled to the extent that he probably could not negotiate a crisis the way President Kennedy did the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.) ..."
"... the extreme demonization of Putin and growing Russophobia in the United States are elevating today's small, less formidable Russia into a threat even graver than was the Soviet Union, against which US nuclear weapons were developed and intended. And this, again, in the context of diminished diplomacy and Trump's diminished capacity to negotiate. ..."
"Russiagate" and the Skirpal affair have escalated dangers inherent in the new Cold
War beyond those of the preceding one.
1. "Russiagate" and the attempted killing of Sergei and Yulia
Skripal in the UK have two aspects in common. Both blame Putin personally. And no actual facts
have yet been made public.
§ Having discussed the fallacies of "Russiagate" often and at length, Cohen focuses on
the Skripal affair. Putin had no conceivable motive, especially considering the upcoming World
Cup Games in Russia, which both the government and the people consider to be very prestigious
and thus important for the nation. No forensic or other evidence has yet been presented as to
the nature of the purported nerve agent used or whether Russia still possesses it; or, even if
so, whether Russia really is the only state whose agents did so; or when, where, and how it was
inflicted on Skripal and his daughter; or why they and many others said to have been affected
by this "lethal" agent are still alive. Nonetheless, even before the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has issued its obligatory tests, and while refusing to give the
Russian government a required sample to test, the British leaders declared that it was "highly
likely" Putin's Kremlin had ordered the attack.
§ Nonetheless, on this flimsy basis, Western governments, led by the UK and reluctantly
by the Trump administration, rushed to expel 100 or more Russian diplomats -- the greatest
number ever in this long history of such episodes.
§ It should be noted, however, that not all European governments did so, and a few
others in only a token way, thereby again revealing European divisions over Russia policy.
2. This episode increases the risk of nuclear war between the United States and
Russia.
§ Ever since the onset of the Atomic Age, the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction
has kept the nuclear peace. This may have changed in 2002. when the Bush administration
unilaterally withdrew from, thereby abrogating, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Since
then, the United States and NATO have developed 30 or more anti-missile defense installments on
land and sea, several very close to Russia. For Moscow, this was an American attempt to obtain
a first-strike capability without mutual destruction. The Kremlin made this concern known to
Moscow many times since 2002, proposing instead a mutual US-Russian developed anti-missile
system, but was repeatedly rebuffed.
§ On March 1, Putin announced that Russia had developed nuclear weapons capable of
eluding any anti-missile system, described it as a restoration of strategic parity, and called
for new nuclear-weapons negotiations.
§ American mainstream political and media elites derided Putin's announcement.
Following the evaluation of several American nuclear experts, four Democratic senators appealed
to (now former) Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to (in effect) respond positively to Putin's
appeal. Nothing came of it. Shortly after the Russian presidential election on March 18,
President Trump himself, in a congratulatory call to Putin, proposed that they meet soon to
discuss the "new nuclear arms race." Trump was widely traduced as having revealed further
evidence that he was "colluding" with Putin, perhaps
§ The result has been, reflected in the mass expulsion of
Russian diplomats, even more fraught US-Russian relations and with them, of course, the
increased risk of nuclear war.
3. Many Americans, including political and media elites who shape public opinion, have
been deluded into thinking, especially since the pseudo–"American-Russian friendship" of
the Clinton 1990s, that nuclear war now really is "unthinkable." That the mass expulsion of
diplomats was merely "symbolic" and of no real lasting consequence. In reality, it has become
more thinkable.
§ Diplomacy kept the nuclear peace during the preceding Cold War, but the mass
expulsions -- even pending the Kremlin's response -- seriously undermines the diplomatic
process. They even criminalize it, as illustrated by denunciations of Trump's phone
conversation with Putin and by widespread political-media demands after he expelled a large
number of Russia's diplomats that he do "more" -- such demands ranging from more sanctions on
Russia to more military responses in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere -- to prove he is not under
Putin's control.
( Identifying all expelled diplomats as "intelligence officers" is also misleading.
Posting intelligence officers as diplomats has long been a mutual de facto arrangement tacitly,
if not explicitly, agreed upon and known by both sides. Moreover, the designation might apply
to embassy officials who study the other country's economic, social, cultural, or political
life. They gather and report "information." )
§ In this connection, historians remind us of how the great powers gradually "slipped"
into World War I. The lesson is the crucial role of diplomacy, now being undermined. Consider,
for example, Syria. Recently, US-backed proxies apparently killed a number of Russian
citizens also operating there. The Kremlin, through its Ministry of Defense, issued an ominous
warning: If this happens again, Moscow will strike militarily not only at the proxies but also
at US forces in the region who provided the weapons and launched the missiles. The same razor's
edge could easily occur where the United States and Russia are also eyeball-to-eyeball, as in
Ukraine or the Baltic region. (Again, as Trump is being crippled to the extent that he probably
could not negotiate a crisis the way President Kennedy did the 1962 Cuban missile
crisis.)
4. The causes of the new risks of nuclear war are not "symbolic" but real and primarily
political.
§ As diplomacy is diminished, the militarization of US-Russian relations increases.
§ Every weapon developed as extensively as have been nuclear weapons have eventually
been used. Washington dropped two atomic bombs, genetic predecessors of their nuclear
offspring, on Japan in 1945. (Before 1914, some people thought gas, the new weapon of mass
destruction, would never be widely used in warfare.)
§ On both sides today, but especially in Washington, there is talk of developing "more
precise nuclear warheads" that could be usable. Use of even a "small, precise" nuclear weapon
would cross the Rubicon of apocalypse.
§ Meanwhile, the extreme demonization of Putin and growing Russophobia in the
United States are elevating today's small, less formidable Russia into a threat even graver
than was the Soviet Union, against which US nuclear weapons were developed and intended. And
this, again, in the context of diminished diplomacy and Trump's diminished capacity to
negotiate.
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and
Princeton
"... Look, it's bogus. It's fiction. It's B.S. It's disinformation. It's American propaganda. The reality is this: Russia has been protesting about the, once we left, Washington left the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, Russia has been protesting what we've been building. We told Russia, why are you worried? It has nothing to do with Russia. This is all about Iran and, quote, rogue states, unidentified. Russia said, OK, in that case let's build it together. We actually have better radar facilities than you have. We'll build it, we'll manage it together. We refused that systematically. ..."
"... Every attempt Russian made to join in the creation of a missile defense system was rejected by Washington. Everybody, unless, you know, you believe in the Easter Bunny, I guess, that this system as it was expanded, increasingly, and it branched out, was directed at Russia. I mean, maybe it would have worked against Iran, too, but that was going to be a bonus. This was about Russia. The Russians knew it. You and I knew it. Everybody knew it. Do you know what is an indestructible weapon system? ..."
"... One funded in all 50 states. All right. That's what this missile defense has been. They farmed out manufacturing of it everywhere from Paducah Kentucky to Israel. Everybody gets a piece of the action. Therefore you get no protest in Congress because it's constituency politics. And that's true of a lot of the weapons systems we make. They're indestructible when all 50 states get a piece of the action, and that's what you have with this missile defense stuff. ..."
"... One reason this situation is so dangerous, Aaron, so dangerous, is that in the '70s and '80s, and I participated at a junior or younger level, the debate over Cold War or detente in the United States, that the pro-detente people, the anti-Cold War people had lots of very senior allies many in Congress. Even in the State Department. Even among presidential aides. It was always a fair fight. ..."
"... There is no one today. Only the Schumers and the Pelosis. And they have become with this Russia gate stuff, claiming that Putin attacked America and it was like Pearl Harbor or 9/11. I mean I never call people names, but this is warmongering. That's exactly what it is. If you claim Russia attacked America, the assumption is we have to attack Russia. And we're talking about nuclear war potentially. So what kind of political leadership is, we have descended into a morass of degraded commentary on Russia that has never even when the Soviet Union existed, even during the worst days of the Cold War, we didn't have this kind of discourse. ..."
"... Warmongering or just politics as usual? That Washington is behaving is a reckless manner these days re Russia is disconcerting, but so is its bellicose behavior toward China, N. Korea, Syria . It is the age of the Moron in Charge. ..."
Who Will Stop the
US-Russia Arms Race? Posted on March 25, 2018
by Jerri-Lynn Scofield Jerri-Lynn
here: This Real News
network interview with Professor Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus at Princeton and NYU,
about the insane arms race between the United States and Russia is terrifying. Cohen concludes
by discussing how the state of debate over detente has deteriorated since the '70s and '80s,
when "the pro-detente people, the anti-Cold War people had lots of very senior allies many in
Congress. Even in the State Department. Even among presidential aides. It was always a fair
fight."
Yet now:
There is no one today. Only the Schumers and the Pelosis. And they have become with this
Russia gate stuff, claiming that Putin attacked America and it was like Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
I mean I never call people names, but this is warmongering. That's exactly what it is. If you
claim Russia attacked America, the assumption is we have to attack Russia. And we're talking
about nuclear war potentially. So what kind of political leadership is, we have descended
into a morass of degraded commentary on Russia that has never even when the Soviet Union
existed, even during the worst days of the Cold War, we didn't have this kind of
discourse.
President Trump is drawing heat for congratulating Russian President Vladimir Putin on his
re-election victory. During a phone call with Putin this week Trump reportedly ignored a
written directive from his aides that instructed him, quote, do not congratulate. Speaking to
MSNBC, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner echoed the outraged response from Republican Sen. John
McCain.
MARK WARNER: I think John McCain put out a statement today, and his words were better than
mine. He says, the leader of the free world doesn't call up and congratulate a dictator over a
sham election. And clearly that's what happened today.
AARON MATE: News of the friendly phone call prompted former CIA Director John Brennan to
suggest that the Russians could have compromising information on Donald Trump.
REPORTER: Why won't the president confront Vladimir Putin, why won't he read the cards and
say the things that you say need to be said to Vladimir Putin? Do you believe he is somehow in
debt to the president of Russia?
JOHN BRENNAN: I think he's afraid of the president of Russia.
REPORTER: Why?
JOHN BRENNAN: Well, I think one can speculate as to why. That the Russians may have
something on him personally that they could always roll out and make his life more
difficult.
REPORTER: Do you believe Russia has something on him?
JOHN BRENNAN: I believe that the Russians would would not, they would opt for things to do
if they believed that it was in their interests. And the Russians, I think, have had long
experience with Mr. Trump and they have things that they could expose.
REPORTER: Something personal, perhaps?
JOHN BRENNAN: Perhaps. Perhaps.
AARON MATE: In his defense, Trump said on Twitter that President Obama had also
congratulated Putin during his last win in 2012. And like Obama, Trump claimed he wants to
cooperate with Russia on several issues, including the arms race. This comes weeks after Putin
gave a speech unveiling a new nuclear arsenal and blaming the U.S. for the arms race. He later
spoke to NBC News.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: If you were to speak about arms race, then an arms race began at exactly the
time and moment when the U.S. opted out of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
AARON MATE: Well, why does Russia blame the U.S. for the arms race? And in this current
political moment, can their differences possibly be resolved. Well, to discuss this, I spoke
recently to Professor Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York
University and Princeton. And I began by asking him what Putin is seeking in his relationship
with the U.S.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, let's begin by saying that there's hardly been a time when Putin did
not call for good relations with the United States, even in the worst of times. And he
continues to refer to American political leaders as 'my partners,' even in the worst of times.
This, by the way, drives harder line, or harder line people in the Soviet security
establishment up the wall. They say to him, why do you keep calling them your partner?
Putin is a guy who came to power with the hope and intention of a real, functional,
constructive economic political relationship with the United States. And though he may have
given up that hope, he still calls for it. The speech he gave that you're referring to, the
equivalent, I guess, of the state of the Union speech on March 1, was exceedingly
important.
The first two thirds of it was essentially his electoral program. It dealt with domestic
issues, what he hopes to do for the Russian people. It was very similar to speeches made here
during our elections. He talked about education, he talked about infrastructure, he talked
about pensions. He talked about health care. No American would be surprised.
[But the latter third. Putin called it historic, and I think it is. And we can explain this
simply. Ever since the America and the Soviet Union acquired the capacity to put nuclear
warheads on ballistic missiles, cross the seas and strike the other country, we have been in a
strategic agreement called mutual assured destruction. And all that meant that if Washington
launched at Moscow, within minutes Moscow would launch at Washington, and both countries would
be grievously affected, if not completely destroyed. And this doctrine, called MAD, may seem
frightful, but it kept the nuclear peace until the idea came up that you could build an
antiballistic missile weapon, missile defense. It started with Reagan.
To prevent that, I think signed in 1972, was a treaty, the antiballistic missile treaty,
which meant that the sides were prohibited from deploying antiballistic missile systems in
order to preserve this mutual assured destruction so that neither side would be tempted to
launch a first strike. Each side, America and the Soviet Union, was given one exemption. Moscow
put a missile defense system over, Russia did over Moscow. And I think we have our someplace in
South Dakota for some reason, I'm not sure why. In 2002 President Bush left this treaty,
nullified it unilaterally.
Ever since then we've been pushing missile defense installations toward Russia. I think
there are 30 or 40. They range from, as I understand it, California to Alaska. But there's one
operating in Romania, one to open in Poland. But here's the thing. we've figured out how to
deploy them on ships. And so these anti-missile defense systems are sailing on ships in the
Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, right on Russia's borders.
So what did Putin say? And it's really, if if half of what he claimed for these weapons is
true, and I'm sure more than half is true, he said, we have developed several weapons that do
not lie at the ballistic level. That is, high in the sky and descend. They fly much lower, much
faster, and they can elude any any missile system that you Americans have spent trillions of
dollars on. So therefore, we have restored mutual assured destruction. He's saying that you
Americans, and it's true some Americans did this, tried to develop missile defense so that you
could threaten us wit,h or perhaps launch, a first nuclear strike knowing that your missile
defense would protect you from retaliation. He said that was a fiction from the beginning. But
we now have these new weapons which make it absolutely impossible. And so he ends by saying,
therefore, having restored the balance of sanity, let us sit down and have major nuclear
weapons talks again.
But again, Aaron, I mean, if it's true, and I have no reason to think it's not true, though
the stages of development of these weapons is a little unclear, it's true what Putin said about
these four or five new weapons systems. We are now in a completely new era, because since the
end of the Soviet Union the United States has tried to develop at least the capacity of a first
strike capability at Russia using these missile defenses. That is over. It's not possible any
longer. Trillions of dollars have been wasted.
By the way, I forget which administration, Bush or Obama, made missile defense a NATO
project. It started out as an American project. But it officially gave it to NATO. Why? Because
where NATO goes, the missile defense installations go, and NATO has expanded right to Russia's
borders.
So this is an historic turning point, assuming what Putin said is largely true. Though you
wouldn't know it. I guess you had on professor Theodore Postol of MIT. And I mean, Ted is
excellent on this stuff but you don't get any of this in the mainstream media. Putin's speech
was read as an act of threatened aggression against the United States. It was just the
opposite.
AARON MATE: Right. And you know, I think what we often forget, too, is that as this missile
system , defensive missile system, whatever it's called, was developed, especially under Bush
number two, George W. Bush, it was billed to Russia for so long as being targeted towards Iran.
Which seems like a pretty tough sell to accept when, when it's actually being positioned so
close to Russia.
STEPHEN COHEN: Look, it's bogus. It's fiction. It's B.S. It's disinformation. It's
American propaganda. The reality is this: Russia has been protesting about the, once we left,
Washington left the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, Russia has been protesting what we've been
building. We told Russia, why are you worried? It has nothing to do with Russia. This is all
about Iran and, quote, rogue states, unidentified. Russia said, OK, in that case let's build it
together. We actually have better radar facilities than you have. We'll build it, we'll manage
it together. We refused that systematically.
Every attempt Russian made to join in the creation of a missile defense system was
rejected by Washington. Everybody, unless, you know, you believe in the Easter Bunny, I guess,
that this system as it was expanded, increasingly, and it branched out, was directed at Russia.
I mean, maybe it would have worked against Iran, too, but that was going to be a bonus. This
was about Russia. The Russians knew it. You and I knew it. Everybody knew it. Do you know what
is an indestructible weapon system?
AARON MATE: No I don't.
STEPHEN COHEN: One funded in all 50 states. All right. That's what this missile defense
has been. They farmed out manufacturing of it everywhere from Paducah Kentucky to Israel.
Everybody gets a piece of the action. Therefore you get no protest in Congress because it's
constituency politics. And that's true of a lot of the weapons systems we make. They're
indestructible when all 50 states get a piece of the action, and that's what you have with this
missile defense stuff.
AARON MATE: OK, so, speaking of Congress. If there is to be any push for Trump to engage
with what Putin said seriously and try to restart some sort of arms control talks, including
the New START treaty, which Trump has indicated little interest in advancing, you'd think that
it would be Trump's opposition party who would be pushing him towards that.
Now, recently there were some Democratic senators to call for a new round of strategic arms
talks with Russia. But I want to read to you a quote from the Senate Democratic leader Chuck
Schumer, where he is greeting the news of Mike Pompeo now being the secretary of state. And
instead of pointing to Pompeo's open disdain for the Iran nuclear deal and his hawkishness on
things including Russia, this is what Chuck Schumer said. He said: The instability of this
administration and just about every area weakens America. If he's confirmed we hope that Mr.
Pompeo will turn up we'll turn over a new leaf and will start toughening up our policies
towards Russia and Putin, unquote.
So Professor Cohen, as we wrap, that is the top priority from the leader of the opposition
party Chuck Schumer, for the new nominee to be secretary of state to be tougher towards
Russia.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, but it's not just Schumer. And Schumer is not to make this distinction
as statesmen. He is a kind of local politician risen way above his pay grade when it comes to
foreign affairs. It was outrageous what he said. But a lot of the Democratic leaders are saying
this sort of thing.
I mean, let me make the point you made before. One reason this situation is so
dangerous, Aaron, so dangerous, is that in the '70s and '80s, and I participated at a junior or
younger level, the debate over Cold War or detente in the United States, that the pro-detente
people, the anti-Cold War people had lots of very senior allies many in Congress. Even in the
State Department. Even among presidential aides. It was always a fair fight.
There is no one today. Only the Schumers and the Pelosis. And they have become with this
Russia gate stuff, claiming that Putin attacked America and it was like Pearl Harbor or 9/11. I
mean I never call people names, but this is warmongering. That's exactly what it is. If you
claim Russia attacked America, the assumption is we have to attack Russia. And we're talking
about nuclear war potentially. So what kind of political leadership is, we have descended into
a morass of degraded commentary on Russia that has never even when the Soviet Union existed,
even during the worst days of the Cold War, we didn't have this kind of discourse.
AARON MATE: We have to leave it there. Professor Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of
Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University. Thank you.
STEPHEN COHEN: Pray a lot, Aaron.
AARON MATE: Will do. And thank you for joining us on the Real News.
Warmongering or just politics as usual? That Washington is behaving is a reckless
manner these days re Russia is disconcerting, but so is its bellicose behavior toward China,
N. Korea, Syria . It is the age of the Moron in Charge.
Pelosi and Schumer, are likely motivated by sticking as much McCarthy-tar to Trump as they
can before the elections, because Mueller-goo is not yet available. I doubt that they would
support preemptive attacks. In Trump's case WH recklessness appears to be adolescent bravado
-- soon to be amplified by his new National Jingo Advisor. Preemptive attacks are Bolton's
broken record (whyizit saber-rattlers are always cowardly draft dodgers?).
That Washington is behaving is a reckless manner these days re Russia is
disconcerting, but so is its bellicose behavior toward China, N. Korea, Syria . It is the
age of the Moron in Charge.
If by the Age of Moron in Charge you refer to Obama as well as Trump, I agree with you.
Yet sill, your moron in charge misses the point that it is primarily Democrats -- not Trump
-- who've embraced and created the Russiagate nonsense that is probably the far greater
danger.
But your moron in charge holds up perfectly with all the other nations, besides
Russia.
Russia isn't Iraq. She can wipe the United States off the face of earth at will if she is
forced to.
IMO you underestimate the level of danger the "politics as usual" is causing this time
with the Democratic Tea Party Birtherists spreading so many lies about Russia it's impossible
to keep track of, and it's affect is to create war with Russia.
In other words, the politics of usual you think this is not usual at all. Its UN-usually
dangerous and irresponsible.
The tar babies will soon have s**t on their face and after millions of $$$$ the
Mueller-goo will fail to stick. Too bad we can't get Trumpie and his boys as well as the
Dimrats to sink in the large tar pit.
The answer is no-one. Our government and policy is controlled by the security, industrial
, military complex. Exactly what Ike predicted before leaving office.
Yes, Ike did indeed deliver that notable speech. But he didn't shut down the Dulles
brothers when he had the chance. Instead, he more or less gave them carte blanche. I recently
read Stephen Kinzer's The Brothers -- and it reminded me just how odious they were, and how
their malign influence continues to haunt US foreign policy.
I have often wondered about Aristotle's observation of democracy -> oligarchy ->
tyranny and if it were really universal. But as time goes on I see myself wondering if a
tyrant who was actually an adult would be better than the children who run this country,
elected though they may be.
A possibly softer landing would be for the rest of the world to gang up on the USA and
administer a beat down a la Sparta in the Peloponnesisn war. Perhaps if the US economy
finally crashes and no one fears us anymore economically. Would that do it? I don't see the
children having much of a spine.
The children in this neighborhood all have caches of old-fashioned matches and lots of
butane lighters and the gasoline cans from the garages in their single-family houses. And if
the beat-down happens, handed out by folks in other neighborhoods, my bet is that these
children are socio-psychopathic enough to burn down the other neighborhoods.
Earlier versions of the "Single Integrated Operational Plan" which like its successors and
what's now OPLAN 8010-12 listed out the targeting options for the US imperial nuclear
weapons, included some interesting possibilities. Maybe it was because the stockpile numbers
of warheads was so large, at over 30,000 weapons, that the "most strategically important"
target set was expected to be "taken out" (cue the nuclear winter scenario), leaving a lot of
"unused" warheads for other purposes. So those target lists, from what I read, included the
capitals and commercial centers of a whole lot of other supposedly "friendly" or at least
"neutral" places. The notion being that if the Empire was to be destroyed, why should some
upstart probably socialist-tending bunch of Wogs be left to survive and profit from picking
over the remains of the Vast Global Capitalist Empire?
So my guess is that, given all the globalization-effectuated corruption and interlocking
interests of the Elites, and the Empire's innovative and disruptive means and methods of
"destabilizing" and "democratizing" places where "anti- full spectrum dominance
global capitalist US" sentiments and motions might arise, getting the Peloponnesus
Consensus together and functioning is just not going to happen. The pathogens and Neo-plasms
have hijacked all the other organ systems, all the incentives are lined up (as with Cohen's
rendering of that other "50-state strategy," and like In that scene in "Planet of the Apes"
franchise, you'll have Charlotte Heston encountering the top of the Statue of Liberty
sticking up from the beach and wailing, Oh my God I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was We
finally really did it. [falls to his knees screaming] YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! AH, DAMN
YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!! [camera pans to reveal the half-destroyed Statue of Liberty
sticking out of the sand] For the video version, looking here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XvuM3DjvYf0
But never you worry, children, it's only a movie And Daddy has such a good job there at
the Pantex plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantex_Plant
And you know Reverend Billy Bob has it straight from God that we will all be raptured up to
Heaven before the bombs detonate! And We Are Ready! https://www.raptureready.com/
So you don't think the children can estimate odds very well? Hmm. Since change seems to
occur now faster than in the past, I guess we are all going to find out in our lifetime.
Imagine being a North Korean, Russian, Iranian.. hearing the ravings of Washington about
attacking your country, your house, your family, killing whoever gets in the way why? Mrs.
Clinton knows all about it, ' and he died'. guffaw, girly giggle, guffaw; Mr. McCain, 'bomb,
bomb Iran', to the tune of teenage, musical drivel from half a century ago; Mr. Obama 'Gee,
I'm really good at killing', concluding with a knowing grin worthy of an Academy Award; and
so forth. Only a rant can possibly relay the breadth and depth of US institutionalised
violence at home and abroad.
Watching the video truly is scary. Democrats like Pelosi and Schumer have truly lost their
minds. Parapheasing Stephen Cohen: "We have never seen this kind of rhetoric even at the
height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union."
Sometimes I fail to realize how insane Democrats (and of course Republicans) have become,
because I don't watch TV and the corporate news shows regularly, and I've lost interest in
the relentless fake news charges against Russia it just never stops and it's always
wrong.
I do have Democratic friends who have called me names, insulted my intelligence, and
implied bad social identity labels to me like "DO you believe the hallocaust even happened?"
and talked down to me like I am mentally retarded, when I insist to them that money
laundering and tax evasion by Americans in deals in Ukraine or elsewhere is not equivalent to
showing evidence that Russia meddled in the election, who insist it's illegal to talk to
Russians, that all Russians are spies and enemies of America. One Democrats told me Capone
was convicted of mail fraud, and he was a gangster, so these people are guilty of election
meddling.
My Republican friends a bit more nuanced regarding Russia. They usually don't like Putin,
but seem indifferent or show little interest with the election meddling angle.
The budget that Trump just signed doubles down on all the weapons systems that Russia just
made obsolete with its recent announcement of new strategic delivery systems. General Mattis
thanked the country for its sacrifice in making this huge military expenditure possible. (I
about drove into a tree when I heard him say this. He is actually admitting that everyone and
everything must now suffer because this is now the country's highest priority when, in fact,
we are not at war yet.)
In exchange for crumbling roads, schools and bridges, a public healthcare crisis and
massive economic inequality, you will be receiving half a trillion dollars of military gear
that will be useless right out of the box.
Given the corrupt and archaic procurement methods used by this country, that has virtually
no oversight, we can expect the defense gap between our current weapons systems and the
Russians to be at least twenty years at current funding levels.
I'll gently disagree with Prof. Cohen on one point.
Opposing the destroyers of Detente was never a fair fight.
Yes, the policy of Detente did have support at the highest levels of government and
academia, but they were vastly outnumbered by the Paul Nitzes and the Richard Pipes'se, and
the destroyers of Detente lied about & distorted Brezhnev's intentions every bit as much
as their intellectual heirs now lie about & distort Putin's intentions.
And this is nothing new. A similar hysteria followed the victory in 1945. A perceptive
observer at the time, a British Army officer who served on the British military mission to
the USSR, minces no words.
"Even in Russia, the land of immensities, it means that one in every twelve Russians alive
in 1941, one In twelve men, women, and children, has died a violent death, in order that the
others might resume their lives with a swing and, if possible, a flourish. And most of those
fifteen million were adults.
The survivors will not, of course, forget this. But we seem to have forgotten it. Because
now, with this great country shattered, ravaged, and exhausted, with her people strained to
the breaking-point, and with her adult manhood more than decimated-now, at this moment, there
are many loud voices in the West crying out that another war is coming quickly and that this
time the aggressor is Russia. And these voices, which cry out of a depth of imbecility, or
ignorance, or unimaginativeness which is truly horrifying to contemplate, are widely
believed."
Edward Crankshaw-Russia and the Russians, 1948, pgs 200-201
Imbecility, ignorance, unimaginitiveness. Of a depth which is truly horrifying to
contemplate.
Hallmarks of the postwar US foreign policy elite, from the get-go.
The arms race is over, and Russia has won, for decades to come, but for some carrying
through and tying up some strings. Sadly, the plutocracy and politicians, especially the
psychopaths, don't know this or are in denial.
The fictions (with the aid of the media) in the demonization of Russia and trying to
maintain the empire may well push us into war and global destruction before climate
destruction takes most of us out.
Since I wasn't here for the beginning of the 'Stupid Mankind play', maybe being here for the
end is next best thing? The final curtain call could happen any time now if huge numbers of
people don't wake up, end the absurd games, and stop it. Otherwise, this is not business or
politics as usual, but very likely the last act.
They have weapons now that will totally nullify an aircraft carrier group. Their weapons
actually work as demonstrated in Syria, while America did all sorts of shitty expensive stuff
that bombed like the F35.
Think about it this way. You have a common enemy, and you take turns to take the enemy on.
If you are doing better than your rival, presumably your weapons/tactics are better no?
That's what Russia demonstrated in Syria.
Americans continue to think that they have the best military in the world. It's as if
Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq didn't happen. Americans better pray that they are not
engaging Iran soon. Let's put it this way, if Iran is so easy to beat, why haven't the
Israelis done it on their own?
What 'Rates' says, and also the new weapons Putin talked about in his speech, unstoppable
hypersonic non-ballistic weapons, and M.A.D. fully in effect. Except Russia has somewhat
better chance for surviving for a while, until the global radiation and nuclear winter takes
out everyone who live through the initial onslaught.
The ABM stuff, what might have worked to a very limited extent, is now totally obsolete.
US doing first strike is suicide. And even trying to catch up will not only take decades, but
bankrupt the country entirely.
You know the democrats should really re-consider their push for a war with Russia. Clinton
supporters on the 2016 electoral map were scattered in small pockets around America which
came to known as the Clinton Archipelago. With a few judicious nuclear strikes, the Russians
could virtually wipe out the bulk majority of democrat voters for good leaving an
all-Republican America left standing.
The sad fact is that America's rulers are not actually pushing war with Russia,
they are just trying to make a lot of money by aligning themselves with the interests of
those who profit from the arms race.
Our rulers long ago gave up even pretending to oppose wasteful military spending and
simply rubber-stamp any spending requests no matter how obviously ill conceived, or even
useless.
They probably feel deep in their hearts that since the whole point of their game
is to enrich those who produce the weapons, and by extension, themselves, as opposed to
preparing for war, that their behavior is not evil, dangerous warmongering, it's only making
money, which everyone knows is the sacred right of every American, enshrined in our
constitution
The problem is, that even though every thinking person on the rest of the planet
understands that our rulers believe "we're really only making money", they also
understand that that belief is a giant delusion, obscuring the fact that making all that
money involves not only spending $trillions buying weapons from the folks who pay to get them
elected, but killing millions of people in the mindless process of manufacturing enemies to
justify the expense.
So now we've arrived at the point where our collective insanity, and bad behavior has
convinced Russia and China to develop weapons systems to counter ours, but theirs are not
simply money making schemes designed to enrich a small bunch of their richest people, their
weapons are actually reliable and effective.
You may ask how I know that their weapons are reliable and effective, it is because their
purpose is to defend their countries from the obviously greed-crazed and hysterical
psychopaths who have purchased control of our country, and have perpetrated the myth that we
are busy spreading peace and our superior democratic values around the world by spreading
chaos, death and destruction.
We've become the existential threat to the planet, and most of people on earth
understand that fact more clearly than we do, because we're so thoroughly marinated in the
myth of America's unassailable virtues, and blind to the fact that hysterical greed is not a
virtue.
Donald and Hillary and Nancy and Chuck are all just trying to make a some money ,
that's one way of looking at it.
"funded in all 50 states. All right. That's what this missile defense has been."
Serious questions for NC commentariat:
-- Why has there been no serious movement for infrastructure spending instead of bloated,
wasteful MIC spending? Seems like infrastructure is (could be) a 50 state spending.
-- Has any empire ever prioritised infrastructure spending over military expansionism and
wars? Ever?
-- Would depression era WPA be an example? If so why did WPA cause such antipathy on
right?
The MIC with its bloated contracts have more lobbyists (bribers) than the construction
companies that compete locally since the states have to pitch in a considerable amount for
infrastructure projects. And the Congress critters can't use the fear card to promote
infrastructure spending.
-- Why has there been no serious movement for infrastructure spending instead of
bloated, wasteful MIC spending? Seems like infrastructure is (could be) a 50 state
spending.
-- Has any empire ever prioritised infrastructure spending over military expansionism
and wars? Ever?
I can't recall any imperial state that has done so, although Rome and China did build some
major infrastructure projects such as the Grand Canal and the Roman Aqueducts. Both are still
in use today thousands of years later.
-- Would depression era WPA be an example? If so why did WPA cause such antipathy on
right?
I'll quote Kalecki here and leave it at that:
We have considered the political reasons for the opposition to the policy of creating
employment by government spending. But even if this opposition were overcome -- as it may
well be under the pressure of the masses -- the maintenance of full employment would cause
social and political changes which would give a new impetus to the opposition of the
business leaders. Indeed, under a regime of permanent full employment, the 'sack' would
cease to play its role as a 'disciplinary measure. The social position of the boss would be
undermined, and the self-assurance and class-consciousness of the working class would grow.
Strikes for wage increases and improvements in conditions of work would create political
tension. It is true that profits would be higher under a regime of full employment than
they are on the average under laissez-faire, and even the rise in wage rates resulting from
the stronger bargaining power of the workers is less likely to reduce profits than to
increase prices, and thus adversely affects only the rentier interests. But 'discipline in
the factories' and 'political stability' are more appreciated than profits by business
leaders. Their class instinct tells them that lasting full employment is unsound from their
point of view, and that unemployment is an integral part of the 'normal' capitalist
system.
I am canadian but was born in communist germany, lived " behind the iron curtain " for the
first twenty years of my live. I still do not know, whom to thank for, that back than, we did
not get " liberated" by the western world, or that they did not try for regime change
Now by default, I am supposedly on the other side of the new cold war. It is not my side
either.
I absolutly do not want any war, no even a cold war, but this aggressive Neoliberal US and
Nato politic is pulling the whole world down.
I am no fan of Putin, but he is not pushing for war.
I went in the 80' to soviet union and could still see what my people had done there
and no, the russians do not want another war.
"... Still worse, Putin and "Putin's Russia" have been so demonized that it is hard to imagine any leading American political figures or editorial commentators responding positively to what is plainly his hope for a new beginning in US-Russian relations. If nothing else, strategic parity always also meant political parity -- recognizing that Soviet Russia, like the United States, had legitimate national interests abroad. The years of American vilifying Putin and Russia are essentially an assertion that neither has any such legitimacy. ..."
Does Putin really believe Washington will "listen now"? He may still have some
"illusions," but we should have none. In recent years, there has been ample evidence that
US policy-makers and, equally important, mainstream media commentators do not bother to
read what Putin says, or at least not more than snatches from click-bait wire-service
reports.
Still worse, Putin and "Putin's Russia" have been so demonized that it is hard to
imagine any leading American political figures or editorial commentators responding
positively to what is plainly his hope for a new beginning in US-Russian relations. If
nothing else, strategic parity always also meant political parity -- recognizing that
Soviet Russia, like the United States, had legitimate national interests abroad. The years
of American vilifying Putin and Russia are essentially an assertion that neither has any
such legitimacy.
And making matters worse, there are the still unproven allegations of "Russiagate"
collusion. Even if President Trump understands, or is made to understand, the new --
possibly historic -- overture represented by Putin's speech, would the "Kremlin puppet"
allegations made daily against him permit him to seize this opportunity? Indeed, do the
promoters of "Russiagate" care?
"... However, the Ukraine conflict has completely messed up that dream project. My most important objection to Saker is that Putin does not know what to do about Ukraine and does not have a policy on Ukraine. He puts up with what no Russian leader would put up with. Americans are arming Ukrainian neo-Nazies for a war with Russia. And Putin does nothing. Americans openly arm terrorists on Syria who shoot a Russian airplane and Russia does nothing. Basically Putin's policy of turning enemies into partners and partners into friends and friends into allies has partially succeeded in Syria but failed in Ukraine. Is he going to wait until US missiles are established in Ukraine? Is he going to accept de facto NATO membership of Ukraine. Where is the red line beyond which he would not go? ..."
Saker did a great job of explaining Cohen's position on Putin that had been misunderstood in
mainstream Western media. Cohen has basically been trying to show that Putin is a normal
leader, ready to cooperate with the US and defend his country's national interests. His
posture has been defensive. Cohen is trying to reason with the liberals and New York Jews. He
is trying to convince them that the mainstream media is lying. Fine.
But that does not explain what Putin's agenda is. Saker goes further. He does explain most of
Putin's past and present. But still there is room for disagreement. Saker argues that Putin
knew all along the wicked intentions of the US and openly revealed that knowledge after the
Ukraine take over by the US. Here I disagree. When Bush came to Russia Putin greeted him with
genuine enthusiasm. Putin then did hope that Russia and US could turn the page and begin a
new relationship. That did not happen. Expansion of NATO happened instead. And that is when
Putin began to reconsider. My difference with Saker is that I believe that Putin still does
not know what his policy to the US should be. He still hopes that Trump will live up to his
pre-election promise. Putin is still beholden to the moment of 2003 when Russia Germany
France and Italy were together in opposition to US Iraq war. He still craves for the days
when the German Chancellor and Italian leader were his personal friends. He hoped then and
still hopes today to draw Europe to Russia and undermine NATO from within.
However, the Ukraine conflict has completely messed up that dream project. My most important
objection to Saker is that Putin does not know what to do about Ukraine and does not have a
policy on Ukraine. He puts up with what no Russian leader would put up with. Americans are
arming Ukrainian neo-Nazies for a war with Russia. And Putin does nothing. Americans openly
arm terrorists on Syria who shoot a Russian airplane and Russia does nothing. Basically
Putin's policy of turning enemies into partners and partners into friends and friends into
allies has partially succeeded in Syria but failed in Ukraine. Is he going to wait until US
missiles are established in Ukraine? Is he going to accept de facto NATO membership of
Ukraine. Where is the red line beyond which he would not go?
I believe it is all divide and rule strategy by western elites. Gender, race. It is far
easier to control and fleece when steeple is distracted and confused, unity, moral and ethics
are destroyed. With Soviet union in place as other choice and pole it would have never
happened even in the West. And frankly, were ussr still in place the West would have been
completely bankrupt by now. Our resources bought them 20 years. Why do you think so much
hatred towards Russia? Imagine your favorite meal refusing to get eaten but actually fighting
back successfully.
Sergey, I 've asked just after u said about bright expectations. Sorry. Actually for me
every one who consider our country as Motherland is precious and should be kept and
helped.
See trolls are under attack, dont know which .. but ill refresh my english and continue to
spread the simple words of reason
Sergey, I dont give my explanations and underderstandings when I just fix the presence of
jews here and there. Of cource I have an explanation, but I keep it for now. But as always
they are here.
Putin's main flaw, like Hitler's, is underestimating the hostility his opponents have
towards him and Russia. However, he does know that Russia is not yet ready for a major war
and is rightfully proceeding carefully. He has countered NATO's attempt to close off Russia's
access to the Black Sea. He has been effectively a savior in helping Syria stave off
Zio-American terror and halted, at least for now, their continued destabilization of the ME.
I would say thus far he has played his cards reasonably well.
A weird country, the USA.
Until 1933 the USA did not recognise diplomatically the USSR. FDR did. Conspiracy theorists,
I'm one of them, suppose that already in 1933 FDR was planning his war.
During the thirties the USSR show trials were denied by USA ambassadors in Moscow, Davies
the first, a nephew of Morgenthau. USA top brass who met the Russians during WWII were very
cynical about them, Patton one of them, he died by an accident, of which many suppose it was
murder.
1948 was the turning point, Stalin blocked Berlin. All of a sudden Uncle Joe became a
monster, THE threat to the USA McCarthy saw communists anywhere.
Then the long Cold War, an effort by the west to let the USSR fall apart through the
burden of defence spending.
1990 success, not just because of defence spending, but because a centrally directed
economy without the profit motive is unable to produce the consumer goods the consumer
wants.
In 1990 I was so naive to think that NATO would be dissolved, it was not.
What western policy towards the non communist Russia was after 1990, I never fully
understood. What is clear that the west has resumed the Cold War, under a pretext, this time,
with a not negligible chance of turning it into a hot war, the war that will end all wars,
the end of humanity.
I am a retired CIA ops officer. For what it is worth, this is the best article on Putin, the
USSR/Russia and the KGB I have ever read. Russiphobe idiots, take note.
Putin certainly changed sides about the time he returned to the presidency in 2012. Prior to
that he had been slowly steering Russia back to its normal place as a European great power
and, thereby, drawing closer to the EU. Suddenly, he became a US neocon stooge and allowed
himself to be used as a "useful idiot" in their campaign to destroy the EU.
That blunder led him to paint himself into the corner he is now in in Ukraine and that
blunder, in turn, led him to wade into the Syrian civil war, thereby painting himself into
another corner. What emerges is a man with little or no political savvy who simply lurches
from blunder to blunder, with each blunder an attempt to overcome the consequences of the
previous blunder. Professor Cohen also repeats a classic neocon propaganda line, namely, that
Russians do not see themselves as Europeans.
As far as I can tell, that propaganda line was invented by Daniel Pipes and was intended,
one supposes, to drive a wedge between Russia and the rest of Europe, in particular the EU. I
can find no evidence (to borrow a phrase!) that Russians regard themselves, or have ever
regarded themselves, as anything but European and Professor Cohen provides no evidence in
support of his claim, although he is quite happy to dismiss criticisms of Putin by arguing
that there is no evidence to support them.
The classic technique of the pro-Putin camp: when it favours Putin, no evidence is
required; when it doesn't suit him, proof, almost to courtroom standards, has to be provided.
Professor Cohen has once again lived up to his reputation as a pro-Putin propagandist and his
remarks will be judged accordingly.
I was amused by the author's claim that Putin "wants a new, multi-polar, international
order of sovereign countries". He could usefully prove his bona fides in that regard by
respecting Ukrainian sovereignty and ceasing to finance anti-EU political parties (the
latest, apparently, being the Lega Nord in Italy), thereby violating the sovereignty of the
countries in which they operate. Indeed, if he hadn't started violating the sovereignty of
other European countries, there wouldn't be a dispute with him in the first place! That does
tend to support the author's view that Putin has been double-dealing from the start, which,
in its turn, completely demolishes Professor Cohen's "nice but misunderstood Mr Putin"
thesis.
Anon from TN
He didn't even need to fly there personally: he scared pathetic nonentities calling
themselves Ukrainian leaders long-range. The truth is, first Ukraine denied OSCE mission
access to these journalists, broke all the rules so badly that even Human Rights Watch said
that Ukraine dangerously interferes with press freedom. But all this bluster evaporated when
Kadyrov entered negotiations. Within 4 days both journalists were released unconditionally
and flown to Moscow. Typical Ukraine: it "suffered a glorious victory" then, not for the
first and not for the last time.
As is widely known, Ukraine is the only country in the world that shot down two civilian
aircraft and not a single military one. However hard the Empire and its lackeys try to
convince the gullible that Malayan Boeing in 2014 was shot down by Russia or Russia-backed
Donbass freedom fighters, international airlines made their conclusions: all fly over Russia,
but they fly around Ukraine, avoiding Ukrainian airspace like they avoid North Korean.
Anon from TN
As far as Crimean population is concerned, it tried to get out of Ukraine since the
dissolution of the USSR in 1991. Crimeans say that finally in 2014 Russia did not betray
them. Polls by Gallup and Pew Research Center in 2014, as well as by German company GfK
later, showed that more than 80% of Crimean residents want to be part of Russia, not
Ukraine.
Not to mention that today the expression "Ukrainian sovereignty" makes as much sense as "the
virginity of an old prostitute".
"... As a young and inexperienced leader placed at the helm of a collapsing state: He rebuilt, stabilized and modernized Russia in a way to prevent future collapses He had to restore the "vertical" of power: "managed democracy" (i.e. restored order) He needed a consensual history patching up Czarist, Soviet and post-Soviet eras without imposing one, single, version of history He needed Western support to modernize the Russian economy He wanted Russia to be a great power, but not a super-power He never favored iron-curtain isolationism; he is an internationalist (more European than 90% of Russians, at least in the beginning). ..."
"... The key thesis is this: Putin began as a pro-Western, European leader and with time he realigned himself with a much more traditional, Russian worldview. He is more in line with Russian voters today. ..."
"... "by any reckoning, be it flourishing inside Russia or relations with Israel, by general consent of all, nobody denies this, Jews under Putin in Russia are better off than they had ever been in Russian history. Ever. They have more freedom, less official anti-Semitism, more protection, more official admiration for Israel, more interaction, more freedom to go back and forth". ..."
"... The Soviet KGB was first and foremost a huge bureaucracy with completely different, and separate, directorates, departments, and sections. Yes, one such Directorate did deal with dissidents and anti-Soviet activists (mainly the 9 th Department of the 5 th Directorate) but even within this (infamous) 5 th Directorate there were some Departments which, in coordination with other KGB Directorates and Departments, dealt with more legitimate tasks such as, for example, the early detection of terrorist organizations (7 th Department). Other Directorates of the KGB dealt with economic security (6 th Directorate), internal security and counter-intelligence (2 nd Directorate) or even protection of officials (9 th Directorate). ..."
"... My most important objection to Saker is that Putin does not know what to do about Ukraine and does not have a policy on Ukraine. ..."
"... The collapse of the Soviet Union was arranged by the Nomenklatura for their own benefit as a massive asset grab. ..."
"... On the plus side, Western sanctions have been a net benefit to Russia over the last three years – keeping capital in the country and giving the agricultural, food processing and light manufacturing industries some room to breathe and develop free from Western competition. ..."
"... I've heard a few of Grudinin's speeches, and they were very disappointing, to put it mildly. It is nice to say that you want to confiscate oligarch's money (after all, they just stole it), stop capital flight, nationalize natural resources, etc. It might sound good for the electorate, but without specifying means of achieving these goals, this is pure demagoguery. ..."
I have recently had the pleasure of watching a short presentation by Professor Stephen F. Cohen entitled "Rethinking Putin" which
he delivered on the annual Nation cruise on December 2, 2017 (see here for the original
Nation Article
and original YouTube video). In his short presentation, Professor
Cohen does a superb job explaining what Putin is *not* and that includes: (but, please do watch the original video before proceeding).
Professor Cohen ended his talk by suggesting a few things which might form a part of a future honest biography:
As a young and inexperienced leader placed at the helm of a collapsing state: He rebuilt, stabilized and modernized Russia in
a way to prevent future collapses He had to restore the "vertical" of power: "managed democracy" (i.e. restored order) He needed
a consensual history patching up Czarist, Soviet and post-Soviet eras without imposing one, single, version of history He needed
Western support to modernize the Russian economy He wanted Russia to be a great power, but not a super-power He never favored iron-curtain
isolationism; he is an internationalist (more European than 90% of Russians, at least in the beginning).
The key thesis is this: Putin began as a pro-Western, European leader and with time he realigned himself with a much more
traditional, Russian worldview. He is more in line with Russian voters today.
Professor Cohen concluded by addressing two topics which, I presume, his audience cared deeply about: he said that, contrary to
Western propaganda, the so-called 'anti-gay' laws in Russia are no different from the laws of 13 US states. Secondly, that "by
any reckoning, be it flourishing inside Russia or relations with Israel, by general consent of all, nobody denies this, Jews under
Putin in Russia are better off than they had ever been in Russian history. Ever. They have more freedom, less official anti-Semitism,
more protection, more official admiration for Israel, more interaction, more freedom to go back and forth".
This is all very interesting important stuff, especially when delivered to a Left-Liberal-Progressive US audience (with, probably,
a high percentage of Jews). Frankly, Professor Cohen's presentation makes me think about what Galileo might have felt when he made
his own "presentations" before the tribunal of Inquisition (Cohen's articles and books are now also on the modern equivalent of the
Index Librorum Prohibitorum) . In truth, Professor Cohen is simply true to himself: he opposed the crazies during the
old Cold War and now he is opposing the same crazies during the new Cold War. His entire life Professor Cohen was a man of truth,
courage, and integrity – a peacemaker in the sense of the Beatitudes (Matt 5:9). So while I am not surprised by his courage, I am
still immensely impressed by it. Some might think that delivering a short presentation on a cruise-ship is hardly a sign of great
courage, but I would vehemently disagree. Yes, nobody would shoot Cohen in the back of the neck like, say, the Soviet ChK-GPU-NKVD
would have done, but I submit that these methods of "enforcing" a single official consensus were far less effective than their modern
equivalents: the conformity imposition techniques (see:
Asch Conformity Experiment ) so prevalent
in the modern Western society. Just look at the results: there was far more reading and thinking (of any kind) going on in the Soviet
society than there is today in the modern AngloZionist Empire (anybody who remembers the bad old USSR will confirm that to you).
As one joke puts it: in a dictatorship, you are told to "shut up", while in a democracy you are encouraged to "keep talking". QED.
Turning to Professor Cohen's talking points, numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 are basic facts. Nothing to be debated here – Cohen is plainly
setting the factual record straight. Number 5 is much more interesting and controversial. For one thing, we are talking views/intentions,
which are hard to judge. Was Putin ever pro-Western? Who knows? Maybe his closest friends know? My own belief is that this question
must be looked at in combination of issue #8: Putin's service in the KGB.
There is still a huge amount of misinformation about the old Soviet KGB in the West. To the average American a "KGB agent" is
a guy called Vladimir, with steel gray-blue eyes, who beats up dissidents, steals Western technological secrets, and spies on the
wives of politicians (and even beds them). He is a hardcore Communist who dreams about nuking or invading the US and he speaks with
a thick Russian accent. Alternatively, there is Anna Kushchenko (a.k.a.
Anna Chapman ) – a devious sex doll who seduces Western
men into treason. These prototypes are as accurate as James Bond is an accurate representation of MI6. The reality could not be more
different.
The Soviet KGB was first and foremost a huge bureaucracy with completely different, and separate, directorates, departments, and
sections. Yes, one such Directorate did deal with dissidents and anti-Soviet activists (mainly the 9 th Department of
the 5 th Directorate) but even within this (infamous) 5 th Directorate there were some Departments which, in
coordination with other KGB Directorates and Departments, dealt with more legitimate tasks such as, for example, the early detection
of terrorist organizations (7 th Department). Other Directorates of the KGB dealt with economic security (6 th
Directorate), internal security and counter-intelligence (2 nd Directorate) or even protection of officials (9
th Directorate).
Putin was an officer (not an "agent" – agents are recruited from outside the KGB!) of the First Main Directorate (PGU) of the
KGB: foreign intelligence. Putin himself has
recently revealed that
he was working inside the most sensitive Department of the PGU, the "Department S" which are "illegals". This is very important.
The PGU was so separate from all the other Directorates of the KGB that it had its own headquarters in the south of Moscow. But even
inside the PGU, the Department S was the most secret and separated from all the other PGU Departments (no less than 10). As somebody
who has spent many years as an anti-Soviet activist and who has had personal, face to face, dealings with KGB officers (of various
Directorates) I can confirm that not only did the KGB as a whole get some of the best and brightest in Russia, but the PGU got the
best ones of those and only the very best ones from that select group ever made it to the legendary Department S. Now let's look
at what kind of skill-set was required from PGU officers in general (besides the obvious two: being very bright and very trustworthy).
First and foremost, a PGU officer has to be a top-notch specialist of his area of expertise (in Putin's case: Germany,
of course, but also the rest of Europe and, since Western Europe was – and still is – a US colony, the US). While Soviet people were
told that the West was the enemy, the PGU officers had to understand why and how the West was that enemy.
In practical terms, this implies not only knowing and understanding the official cultural, political, social and economic realities
of the enemy's polity, but also the real power relations inside that polity. Such an understanding is not only useful to approach
and evaluate the potential usefulness of each person you interact with, but also to be able to understand in what environment this
person has to operate. The notion of PGU officers being bigoted commies is laughable as these men, and women, were very well read
(they had unlimited access to all the Western information sources, including anti-Soviet ones, classified reports, and all the anti-Soviet
literature imaginable) and they were ultimate realists/pragmatists. Of course, like in any organization, the top leaders were often
political appointees and the bureaucrats and counter -intelligence officers were much less sophisticated. But for officers like Putin
to really understand the reality of the Western society was a vital skill.
Second, a good PGU officer had to be likable; very, very likable. Being liked by others is also a crucial skill for a good intelligence
officer. In practical terms, this means that he/she has to not only understand what makes the other guy tick but how to influence
him/her in the right direction. When dealing with 'illegals' that also meant being their best friend, confessor, moral support, guide
and protector. You can't do that if people don't like you. So these intelligence officers are masters of being good friends and companions;
they are good listeners and they know a lot about how to make you like them. They also understand exactly what you like to hear,
what you want to see and what words and actions place you in a relaxed and trusting mode.
Now combine these two: you have a man who is top notch specialist of the West and who is superbly trained to be liked by Western
people. How likely is it that this man had many illusions about the West, to begin with? And what if a man like that did have misgivings
– would he have shown them?
My own gut feeling is that this is not very likely at all.
What is far more likely is this: Putin played the "West best's friend" role for as long as possible and he dumped it when it was
clearly not productive any longer. And yes, in doing that he did realign himself to the mainstream Russian public opinion. But that
was just a useful side-effect, not the cause or the goal of that realignment.
Look at the Professor Cohen's points 9-13 above (I would summarize them as "fix Russia"). They all make sense to me, even that
" he was a young and inexperienced leader ". There is a huge difference between being a skilled PGU officer and being the
man who rules over Russia. And even if Putin did lose some of his illusions, it would have been primarily because the West itself
changed a great deal between the 1980s and the 2010s. But Putin must have indeed always known that to implement Cohen's points 10-13
he needed the West's help, or, if that was not possible, at least the West's minimal interference/resistance. But to believe that
a man who had full access to the real information about the two Chechen wars would have any kind of illusions left about the West's
real feelings about Russia is profoundly misguided. In fact, anybody living in Russia in the 1990s would have eventually come to
the realization that the West wanted all Russians to be slaves, or, more accurately, and in the words of Senator McCain – "
gas station
" attendants. Putin himself said so when
he declared , speaking about
the US, " they don't want to humiliate us, they want to subjugate us. They want to solve their problems at our expense,
they want to subordinate us to their influence ". Putin then added, " nobody in history has ever succeeded in doing this and
nobody will ever succeed ". First, I submit that Putin is absolutely correct in his understanding of the West's goals. Second,
I also submit that he did not suddenly "discover" this in 2014. I think that he knew it all along, but began openly saying so after
the US-backed coup in the Ukraine. Furthermore, by 2014, Putin had already accomplished points 9-13 and he did not need the West
as much anymore.
Now let's look at points 6 (Putin's view of the Soviet period), 12 (consensual history) and 14 (Russia as a great power but not
a super-power). And again, let's consider the fact that officers of the PGU had total access to any history books, secret archives,
memoirs, etc. and that they were very free to speak in pragmatic analytical terms on all historical subjects with their teachers
and colleagues. Here I submit that Putin had no more illusions about the Soviet past then he had about the West. The fact that he
referred to the breakup of the Soviet Union (which, let's remember, happened in a totally undemocratic way!) as a "
catastrophe
" which was " completely unnecessary " does in no way imply
that he was not acutely aware of all the horrors, tragedies, waste, corruption, degradation and general evil of the Soviet regime.
All this shows is that he is also aware of the immense victories, achievements, and successes which also are part of the historical
record of the Soviet era. Finally, and most importantly, it shows that he realizes what absolute disaster, a cataclysm of truly cosmic
proportions the break-up of the Soviet Union represented for all the people of the former USSR and what an absolute nightmare it
was for Russia to live a full decade as a subservient colony of Uncle Sam. I am certain that Putin studied enough Hegel to understand
that the horrors of the 1990s were the result of the internal contradictions of the Soviet era just as the Soviet era was the result
of the internal contradictions of Czarist Russia. In plain English, this means that he fully understood the inherent dangers of empire
and that he decided, along with the vast majority of Russians, that Russia ought to never become an empire again. A strong, respected
and sovereign country? Yes. But an empire? Never again. No way!
This fundamental conclusion is also the key to Putin's foreign policy: it is "reactive" by nature simply because it only acts
in response to when (and what) something affects Russia. You could say that all "normal" nations are "reactive" because they have
no business doing otherwise. Getting involved everywhere, in every fight or conflict, is what empires based on messianic ideologies
do, not normal countries regardless of how big or powerful they are. For all the sick and paranoid hallucinations of Western Russophobes
about a "resurgent Russia" the reality is that Russian diplomats have often mentioned what the goals of Russian foreign policies
truly are: to turn enemies into neutrals, neutrals into partners, partners into friends and friends into allies. And this is why
Professor Cohen is absolutely correct, Putin is no isolationist at all – he wants a new, multi-polar, international order of sovereign
countries; not because he is a naïve wide-eyed idealist, but because this is what is pragmatically good for Russia and her people.
You could say that Putin is a patriotic internationalist.
And now to the homosexuals and Jews. First, both assertions made by Professor Cohen are correct: homosexuals and Jews are doing
great in modern Russia. I would even agree that they are doing better than ever before. Of course, both Professor Cohen and I are
being factual and very superficial when we say that. And since I discussed both of these topics in some detail in the past (see
here and
here ) I won't discuss
them here. Rather, I would simply state that in both cases we are talking about a rather small minority of whose treatment is, for
some reason or other, considered as THE measure of humanity, kindness, civilization, and modernity in the West. Well, okay, to each
his own. If in the West, the treatment of these two minorities is The One And Only Most Important Topic In The Universe – fine. I
personally don't care much (especially since I don't feel that I owe any special consideration to either one of them). This being
said, I would also claim that Putin's number one concern is also not for any specific minority. However, and that is where this is
indeed very interesting, his concern for the majority does not at all imply any kind of disregard or disrespect for the fundamental
freedoms and rights of the minorities but includes his concern for all minorities (and, in this case, not just two minorities which
are treated as "more equal than others").
This is where various right-wingers and assorted Alt-Righters completely "lose" Putin. The very same Putin who told an assembly
of Orthodox Jews in Moscow that 80-85% of Bolshevik leaders were Jews (see subtitled video
here ), the same Putin who crushed the (overwhelmingly Jewish) oligarchs
of the Eltsin era as soon as he came to power, and the same Putin who completely ignored all the hysterics of Bibi Netanyahu about
the Russian role in Syria is also the same Putin who went out of his way to protect Russian Jews inside Russia and who considers
that Jews and Russians are forever joined in their common memory of the horrors of WWII.
[Sidebar: I personally wish that Russia would denounce Israel for what it is, an illegitimate racist rogue state hell-bent on
genocide and expansion, but I don't have relatives there. Neither am I the President of a country with very strong ties to the Russian-speaking
Jewish communities worldwide. In my opinion, I am accountable to nobody else but my conscience and God, whereas Putin is accountable
to those who elected him and still support him].
Guilt by association, the punishment of all for the actions of some, scapegoating, the vicious persecution of minorities in the
name of some ideal – this has all been tried in the past, both in Russia and in the West. The Nazis did that and so did the Soviets.
And both the Nazis and the Soviets inflicted untold horrors upon the many peoples of the Soviet Union and beyond. Putin is acutely
aware of the dangers of nationalism, just as much as he is aware of the dangers of imperialism, and he said so many times: Russia
cannot afford any more nationalistic conflicts as they almost completely destroyed Russia in the 1990s. Just look at modern Ukraine
and you will see what a Russia torn apart by nationalist ideologies could have looked like had Putin not cracked down, hard, on various
nationalists (including and mostly Russian ones).
Far from catering to (an admittedly powerful) Jewish lobby in Russia, Putin is, in fact, trying to assemble as many different
peoples and minorities as possible to his project of a New Russia; and that project includes Russian Jews, not only for the sake
of these Jews, but mainly for the sake of Russia . The same goes for another crucial minority in Russia – Muslims. They also very
much form a key part of the project Putin has for Russia. Of course, racists, nationalists and other less than bright folks in Russia
will still dream about expelling all Jews (or Muslims) from Russia. Simply put – that ain't happening (for one thing this would be
physically impossible) and Putin and those who support him will fight such projects with every legal tool at their disposal. Here
again, you could say that Putin is a patriotic internationalist.
In the meanwhile, the West is still stuck in its old, ideological ways: imperialism, nationalism and messianic exclusivism on
one hand, and a complete surrender to post-modernism, cultural self-hatred, petty minority politics and moral relativism on the other.
It is, therefore, no surprise whatsoever that both mainstream camps in the West completely misread Putin and can't figure out what
he is up to.
Professor Cohen is right: the real Putin has absolutely nothing, nothing at all, in common with the pseudo-Putin the Western media
presents to its infinitely gullible and zombified audience. Alas, nobody will listen to Cohen, at least not until the regime in Washington
DC and the power structure which supports it, and whose interests it represents, come crashing down. But I do believe that Professor
Cohen will eventually go down in history as the most intellectually honest and courageous Russia expert in the US.
I respect this commentator and respect Mr. Cohen and detest the power structure they are resisting. This seems to be a realistic
appraisal of Putin's role.
Guilt by association, the punishment of all for the actions of some, scapegoating, the vicious persecution of minorities
in the name of some ideal – this has all been tried in the past, both in Russia and in the West. The Nazis did that and so
did the Soviets.
Saker, I know you want to sound egalitarian and fair, but comparing Nazi's and Soviet treatment of minorities – come on man.
Nazi's mistreated minorities because of the fact that they were of different ethnicity, and that treatment was reserved for them
only, and not for the Germans.
In the Soviet Union, the mistreatment of minorities had more equal opportunity flavor – they didn't want to make the minorities
feel left out of the mistreatment that the ethnic Russians were receiving themselves.
In other words, the USSR didn't want to discriminate against the minorities by treating them differently than the ethnic Russians.
Imagine how it would have felt from the minorities perspective if the USSR authorities refrained from sending them to the Gulag.
They would have felt unloved and unworthy of receiving the same treatment as the Russians. Like they are not good enough to be
sent to the Gulag.
Both of you – The Saker and prof. Cohen probably are right in yours conclusions about Putin and its role in world and Russia's
history. But: - he was appointed by Yeltsin, as I.Shamir (
http://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-rich-also-cry/ ) said
to guard Old Money; - he did alot for our country and really saved it from final crushing, but he could have done much more
and he had not.
I mean corruption questions when he behaves very selectively (keeping some corruptioners while fight with others, this looks
like undercover fight), economy (thanks US imbeciles with sanctions which forced him to support internal productions and agriculture),
he did almost nothing to get those oligarchs's money work for country, he does invest to different unneeded projects (like football
champ etc) not trying to help poorest part of our society, he still does nothing (even supports) 5th column (Chubais, Kudrin,
Shuvalov, Gref ), building stupid Eltsin center .
So I, as well as many Russian, have a very contradictory feelings to him. After Crimea joined Russia we all gave him a big
credit. Most than 90% of Russians happy of this, when root and lovely part of Russia returned home not to say about strategic
meaning of that. But now credit is over and if we could see someone good enough to be compared with Putin – quite a significant
part of a society is ready to vote for for such person. Unfortunately not now. Grudinin doesn't seem to be real alternative,
others are just clowns appointed to be faked alternatives.
And the future of Russia is very vague.
Alas, nobody will listen to Cohen, at least not until the regime in Washington DC and the power structure which supports
it, and whose interests it represents, come crashing down.
But, thanks to US neocons, it's probably no future at all going to happen, just getting back to stone age. Hope it's
a joke. Alas.
Professor Cohen is right: the real Putin has absolutely nothing, nothing at all, in common with the pseudo-Putin the Western
media presents to its infinitely gullible and zombified audience. Alas, nobody will listen to Cohen, at least not until the
regime in Washington DC and the power structure which supports it, and whose interests it represents, come crashing down. But
I do believe that Professor Cohen will eventually go down in history as the most intellectually honest and courageous Russia
expert in the US.
It's very encouraging for me to get the impression that a genuine expert, such as Cohen is on Russia and on Putin, has reached
the same broad conclusions about Putin as I have as a mere amateur (albeit long-time) observer of world events.
It's vaguely discouraging that on the particular issues of homosexuals and jewish influence Cohen is able to "reassure" the
worst parts of his leftist and presumably political correctness-hobbled audience on Putin, but it's not really a big concern for
me. It would be better imo if Putin had wise views on those topics – "gays" are not a "minority" but rather just people who choose
to engage in sexual perversion which ought, at the least, to not be officially encouraged, and Jewish people are a recognizable
ethnic/national/religious group, with broadly clear identity interests and external loyalties not necessarily congruent with those
of the nations they live in, but it's mostly not really any of my business or concern, except insofar as it plays into politics
and international policy over here, since he's the Russian president and I'm not Russian.
Anyone who would bother to examine the issue would arrive at the same conclusions as Mr Cohen. Most Americans won't but just rely
on what the mass media transmits to them. The propaganda campaign against Putin depends on repeating the same themes over and
over again hence the constant use of the term "thug" to influence the minds of the audience. The campaign against Putin is so
vehement and shrill because of his effectiveness in building up the Russian state. Contrast it to the treatment Yeltsin received
in the western media as a brave fighter for democracy with pics of him standing on top of a tank. Name calling can't harm Putin
or Russia even if it creates an unpleasant environment. After all, they have their army and can't be aggressed against no matter
any wishful thinking. The toxic haze is to get the western mind used to the idea that conflict with the Russians, or Putin, in
inevitable and desirable to free the world of a dictator. Clinton appeared to want a no-fly zone over Syria and thus military
confrontation was on the horizon over that and over other places. We were being prepared for that. That seems to have dissipated
for the moment but the internal dynamic of US expansionism remains. What we don't want to do is start believing our own baloney
and blunder into any conflict that could cause a catastrophe.
As they say you can't make everyone happy, for they could have always in their limited view and knowledge of what's going on
behind the scenes could always have done more, but the fact remains that Putin was the right person at the right time for Russia
Anon from TN
You wrote: "Putin is the leader of the free World. A sensible man with a real set of nuts, he stands almost alone".
In my view, you grossly overestimate Putin. He is a normal man, capable and intelligent, but he is not by any means that larger-than-life
leader and savior of the free World. He looks much greater than he is because you subconsciously compare him with pathetic nonentities
that the Western world sees as leaders now. In fact, the leadership of the US Empire and all its vassal countries visibly degenerated
in the last decades. Just compare De Gaulle with sad excuses La Belle France had for presidents lately. Or compare Nixon (he might
have been a nasty person, but he was a great President of the country) with various Clintons, bushes, obamas, and trumps. Or compare
Chancellor Kohl with that poor excuse for a chancellor that Germany has today. You get the drift.
Putin's Russia punches much more than its economic power warrants for the simple reason that he plays chess, seeing many moves
ahead, whereas Western leaders he deals with don't even have enough brains to play checkers. He is often winning the game with
weak hand not so much because he is great, but because his opponents are clueless. I'd say he, Chinese Xi, and Israel's Bibi look
so smart not because they are geniuses, but because they are dealing with morons.
Anon from TN.
Sorry to disappoint you, but when the Russians saw the example of Ukraine after 2014 they understood the destructive power of
primeval tribal nationalism. That's why after the Ukrainian coup popular support for Russian nationalists nosedived. Let me remind
you that neither Kadyrov, nor Shoigu, nor Lavrov are ethnic Russians, yet they are perceived by many in the country as super-Russians.
Many in today's Russia hold the view that Russian is not a nationality, but a state of mind. Let me remind you the words of former
commander of Gorlovka (Donetsk Republic) Bezler: "My mother is Ukrainian, my father German, so who am I? A Russian!"
For the last four years I have listened to Prof Steve Cohen being interviewed on the John Batchelor radio show. In those discussions
I have always been struck by Cohen's equanimity, scholarship and sense of fair play. (As an aside, I have also been struck by
his seemingly fond regard for being reared and educated in Kentucky which at that time was still semi-segregated.)
Cohen oftentimes contrasts the Old Cold War where various viewpoints were on the table versus the one-sidedness of the New
Cold War. And he especially castigates his fellow left wingers for failing to consider alternative viewpoints. Note that Cohen
is associated with The Nation magazine, a leftist publication edited and subsidized by his wife.
As of now Cohen is a lone voice crying out in the wilderness. I concur with your judgement and it is my hope that history will
honor him for his efforts.
Amongst people who tend to really distrust, dislike people, where we are called Russian agents, or Russians. I have studied
lots about Russia, especially since 1990 plus.
I also came to similar over years as Cohen. There is no plan for USSR rebirth, or tanks rolling to Poland and Berlin, or even
returning to super power status (at least unlikely).
In 1990 the Russians were in very poor state, and now they have returned to world power status. I think its important to have
bipolar world. (even multipolar would be better).
Now I dont love Russians, Im still mixed on Putin, but I think Russians and Putin have made some positive changes. I can respect
that. Average Russian, morals are similar to mine (and the same can be said of most Slavics).
Anon from TN. Well, current Ukrainian regime is a lot more "Sovok" than those who resist it. At least if by "Sovok" you mean
rampant corruption, widespread unprofessionalism, and obsession with a totally loony ideology.
"Cohen is a lone voice crying out in the wilderness." Feels that way, but he's not totally alone. For example, I believe
most members of VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) feel about the same. And he's a board member of the American
Committee for East-West Accord.
I neither like nor dislike Putin. He is what he is, he's in charge of Russia, he needs to be dealt with.
>He is not the man who de-democratized Russia (Elstin and the White House did)
When was Russia ever democratic to begin with? Tsarism, civil war, Communism, oligarchy, Putin. That's pretty much been it.
And that's OK. Russia is a massively different culture. But the US isn't to blame.
>He is not the leader who created corruption and kleptocracy in Russia (Elstin and the White House did)
No. Corruption began to really take off in the 1970s under Brezhnev, and that's when the Russian mafia began to strongly collaborate
with the government, breaking the old vor code. The KGB remained above it all, but Putin was the product of a corrupt society
from the get-go.
Following the collapse of the USSR, yes, everything got a lot more explicit and out-there. But the rot didn't just appear overnight.
>He is not a criminal leader who ordered the murder of opponents or journalists (no evidence)
I don't find it hard to believe, but I don't care enough to find out one way or the other. What Putin does in his own country
is, or should be, his own business. Properly conducted foreign policy cares about the external actions of foreign nations, not
their internal ones, but that's anathema to American political culture-on both sides of the political spectrum.
Besides, I can't really label a single group in society I could care less about than journalists.
>He did not order the hacking of the DNC servers (no evidence)
Again: I don't find it hard to believe he did, but I don't think it is as relevant as the Democrats would like it to be. Intelligence
services can exacerbate political conditions. They cannot create them. Putin did not force Hillary to run arguably the most inept
campaign in American political history, losing in spite of the near uniform backing of everything "official" in the US. Unless
you believe Moscow magically spawned millions of pissed off downscale white voters in the Rust Belt, try again.
Moreover, Putin definitely wanted Trump to create political chaos in the US. Whether he wanted him in the White House is an
open matter. Though he's friendlier than Hillary on a lot of foreign policy issues, he's surrounded by standard issue GOP hawks
who influence everything, and he must be disappointed. Furthermore, like all authoritarian rulers, Putin wants stability. (That's
why, prior to Bush II, most authoritarian governments in the world-especially Russia and China-openly preferred Republicans in
charge.) Trump is anything but.
>He was not anti-US or anti-West from the get-go (Putin changed over time)
Correct. He's changed over the years.
>He is not a neo-Soviet leader (he is very critical of Lenin and Stalin)
Very critical of Lenin, which should surprise no one given that Lenin himself was far more fond of Western culture-specifically
German -- than Russia, who he thought of as a backward, "Asiatic" place. As I've said, the KGB following Stalin's purges was arguably
the least ideologically Communist place in the USSR, at least compared to their major two rivals-the military and party -- in
the ever ongoing three-war political struggle that characterized post-Stalin Russia.
More ambiguous with Stalin. He's been making noises about replacing Volgograd's name around the anniversary of the battle back
to the old Stalingrad. I think he holds the standard views that Russians his age hold of Stalin. I think they'll readily agree
that he's probably in hell if it exists right now, and showed there was such a thing as being too fond of law and order, but he
was *their* SOB and got them through the war.
>He is not an aggressive foreign policy leader (he has been a reactive leader)
He is primarily defensive, yes. Partially by necessity-his Russia just can't project power like the USSR could-but also because,
unlike the USSR, his Russia is not governed by an ideology that necessarily implies eventual expansionism.
>He is not somehow defined by his years at the KGB.
He's partially defined by them, but not in the way people think. The KGB was, by the time Putin was in the organization, far
and away the least ideologically Communist place in the USSR and saw their main function as protecting what was essentially an
old-style Muscovite imperium with Marxist trappings from the spoiled, corrupt party princelings-who they did not allow into the
organization. The KGB was the only place someone like Putin could have accelerated, given that 1970s USSR had one of the lowest
social mobility rates in the world, contrary to the propaganda. Chekist thinking is very evident in his public pronouncements,
his actions, and his beliefs about how life works. It's pretty obvious. Putin's regime is the first in history to be dominated
by former security and intelligence professionals to this extent. Most of his inner circle-former intelligence officers.
However, equally important is old-style Tsarist Orthodox-laden Slavophilism, and just plain greed and venality. The third one
is overlooked. I think Putin's real first goal, all things balanced, is staying in charge, on top, and wealthy. That means keeping
the various turf lords in check and satisfied. It works for now. What happens to the sand-castle when he dies is a different matter.
As they say you can't make everyone happy, for they could have always in their limited view and knowledge of what's going
on behind the scenes could always have done more
Exactly, but I think you know not more that me here in Russia "what's going on behind the scenes".
And yes, probably there are hidden reasons for his behaviour, but I've written what many (I beleive the majority) of Russians
think. Of cource not all, there are some absolute fans of him and absolute enemies, BTW mainly latter are jews for unknown reasons.
but the fact remains that Putin was the right person at the right time for Russia
bold assertion – "the fact". It's not the fact, – it's your opinion, not more. Yes, It could have been much worse person,
but could have been much better. Or you think he's an ideal? Nobody denies his achievements, but I mentioned also his (actually
ours) losses or mistakes.
Saker did a great job of explaining Cohen's position on Putin that had been misunderstood in mainstream Western media. Cohen has
basically been trying to show that Putin is a normal leader, ready to cooperate with the US and defend his country's national
interests. His posture has been defensive. Cohen is trying to reason with the liberals and New York Jews. He is trying to convince
them that the mainstream media is lying. Fine.
But that does not explain what Putin's agenda is. Saker goes further. He does explain most of Putin's past and present. But
still there is room for disagreement. Saker argues that Putin knew all along the wicked intentions of the US and openly revealed
that knowledge after the Ukraine take over by the US. Here I disagree. When Bush came to Russia Putin greeted him with genuine
enthusiasm. Putin then did hope that Russia and US could turn the page and begin a new relationship. That did not happen. Expansion
of NATO happened instead. And that is when Putin began to reconsider. My difference with Saker is that I believe that Putin still
does not know what his policy to the US should be. He still hopes that Trump will live up to his pre-election promise. Putin is
still beholden to the moment of 2003 when Russia Germany France and Italy were together in opposition to US Iraq war. He still
craves for the days when the German Chancellor and Italian leader were his personal friends. He hoped then and still hopes today
to draw Europe to Russia and undermine NATO from within.
However, the Ukraine conflict has completely messed up that dream project. My most important objection to Saker is that
Putin does not know what to do about Ukraine and does not have a policy on Ukraine. He puts up with what no Russian leader
would put up with. Americans are arming Ukrainian neo-Nazies for a war with Russia. And Putin does nothing. Americans openly arm
terrorists on Syria who shoot a Russian airplane and Russia does nothing. Basically Putin's policy of turning enemies into partners
and partners into friends and friends into allies has partially succeeded in Syria but failed in Ukraine. Is he going to wait
until US missiles are established in Ukraine? Is he going to accept de facto NATO membership of Ukraine. Where is the red line
beyond which he would not go?
Cohen is a Communist and reflexive hater of the United States in the Noam Chomsky mold. He is either naive or a fool if he believes
half of what he is saying.
Russia never had a decent shot at democracy. The collapse of the Soviet Union was arranged by the Nomenklatura for their
own benefit as a massive asset grab. The fight between Yeltsin and the Russian Parliament was basically a fight between two
factions, and the Yeltsin/KGB faction beat the CPSU/Red Manager faction. Putin is very much a product of and continuation of the
Yeltsin/KGB team (notice, for example, the role that Chubais continues to play in government policy), but the current team realizes
how hated Yeltsin is and are smart enough to create plausible distance for public consumption.
For the most part the Putin years have been a failure, and these last two decades will be seen as squandered. Very little economic
growth, continuing deterioration of the education and health systems, increasing dependence on China and massive transfers of
wealth abroad. Those are Putin's primary achievements. On the plus side, Western sanctions have been a net benefit to Russia
over the last three years – keeping capital in the country and giving the agricultural, food processing and light manufacturing
industries some room to breathe and develop free from Western competition.
Good question. Probably it was a sarcasm and you think you proved I'm wrong?
After all the answer depends on what you trying to get. For US probably Sobchak will be just fine, for people of Russia who want
peace and prosperity the answer will be certainly other.
I put it quite clear
But now credit is over and if we could see someone good enough to be compared with Putin – quite a significant part of a
society is ready to vote for for such person. Unfortunately not now.
Unfortunately I see no specific person
Grudinin doesn't seem to be real alternative, others are just clowns appointed to be faked alternatives.
But as for me personally I ( probably , I'm still watching for his electoral company) will vote for Grudinin cause he's
representing patriotic block, not himself only.
Anon from TN
You are free to vote any way you want. However, I'd like to remind you that Russia already had one Director of Sovkhoz as president
(Gorbachev), and nothing good came out of it.
Cohen could go further. One of the curious fixations of US public discourse is reducing the country to a leader, when the most
comprehensive standard of governance assigns duties to the state as a whole. Anyone can compare Russia and the USA point by point.
Comparing US and Russian human rights protections, it's evident that Putin's Russia undertakes to meet world human rights standards
in good faith, and the USA does not. Russians get a better deal than we do.
If my opinion really matters i'll write more later, now from phone its abit difficult.
I can only say that we need clever, honest patriotic person which is not easy task u know. Especially if u are from US, every
elections believe that most stupid people we already seen and its cant be worst, but I'm mistaken. Compare for ex Samanta Power
and N. Haley or Obama and Trump
Yes we need to isolate those cause they will do their dirty job with childs and u have no enough police to watch. They aggressively
set theirs habits remember lgbt parades etc
Yes I would be interested in your opinion, and yes I do live in the U.S. and yes your right that just when you think the worse
has arrived then on the scene one always worse arrives to makes you out as a lair
Anon from TN
You are right, this is not a scientific conclusion. Politics are not science.
I agree that Putin is not a perfect leader. His foreign policy is smart and successful (hence the US hysterics). But his internal
policies are far from admirable: he allows oligarchs to plunder the country and even transfer their loot abroad. A big chunk of
state budget is stolen by those close to the trough, but you have to keep in mind that even greater chunk of state budget is stolen
by "contractors" in the US and other countries (F35 program and Zumwalt are the best known examples, but there are many more).
Thing is, the politics are the game of the possible. I am not sure Putin can maintain his international stance and his position
in Russia and antagonize the whole ruling class at the same time. I disapprove of his "vertical" – Russia is not Lichtenstein,
it's a huge country that cannot be directly ruled by one person. I also believe that Russia cannot afford to have a total nonentity
as a Prime Minister, with only one redeeming (from Putin's standpoint) quality: loyalty.
However, I've heard a few of Grudinin's speeches, and they were very disappointing, to put it mildly. It is nice to say
that you want to confiscate oligarch's money (after all, they just stole it), stop capital flight, nationalize natural resources,
etc. It might sound good for the electorate, but without specifying means of achieving these goals, this is pure demagoguery.
There is only one way to do all of it, and this way is called "socialism", like in the USSR. Problem is, this comes in a package:
you must make rouble not freely convertible into other currencies, you must strictly control the movement of people across the
border, you must introduce planned or at least semi-planned economy, etc.
You cannot pick and choose, no more than you can be a little bit pregnant: it is a yes or no thing. If Grudinin does not understand
that, he is not smart enough to be president. If he understands it, but does not acknowledge, he is simply dishonest. Many of
the other candidates are just clowns supported by the Kremlin to play this role (think Zhirinovsky). Besides, Russia should have
as the president someone who cares about the country more than about him/herself (this excludes Sobchak: she is smart, but she
cares only about her precious self), and certainly not a traitor running to the US Embassy for money and marching orders (you
should know who I mean). Thus, in my humble opinion, Putin, warts and all, is still the best president Russia can have at the
moment.
From phone..
Well, its funny, I just dont understand who are the God sake US people here on UNZ, from different sources I see Americans happy
with one more Russian killed in Syria. You know we call Americans "pindosy" ( пиндосы ) I actually not sure what its mean, but
its clear that its a most degree of disgust. And further its going the more our disgust. And its between two most powerful
countries in the world. Are u Americans have any feelings of selfdefence? Actually all red lines crossed and everything
ready for apocalypse
Pbone.
I'll answer,later. But just understand that for us its a live question, well probably for the whole world also, but this stupid
world doesn't know it yet
People of Lenin and Stalin caliber do not happen often. I think Putin is sort of transitional figure. However the main issue
since Stalin times seems to be lack of systematic approach in bringing up and then putting in power capable leaders and in reality
lots of fools getting up there. I believe fools essentially destroyed Ussr as saying goes fool is more dangerous than enemy. Long
topic but it is really a murky question as to where Russia is going with 70% of everything in few hands and stolen funds siphoned
offshore.
Oh I don't think most Americans are glad to see another Russian killed, at least not the sane ones that is, or anyone else
for that matter but our so called leadership is quite a different matter, and the farther down the rabbit hole we go the worse
it becomes as the best government money can buy goes into overdrive, for I suspect it will get a whole lot worse before it even
starts to get and better
New evidence that Washington broke its promise not to expand NATO "one inch eastward" -- a fateful decision with ongoing ramifications
-- has not been reported by The New York Times or other agenda-setting media outlets
John Batchelor Jan 11,
2018 | 2,513
70
John Batchelor has a very popular political talk show on America's largest radio network, WABC.
He has Stephen Cohen on live in the studio almost every week for a full 45 minute segment, the only guest he gives that much time
to.
Why? Because Cohen's appearances are killing the ratings. America seems to be thirsting for an alternative and critical view of
Obama's Russia policy.
Cohen returns to a subject he has treated repeatedly since the 1990s, mainstream media malpractice in covering Russia, but with
a new and highly indicative example that is both historical and profoundly contemporary.
There have been three relevant major episodes of such malpractice. The first was when American newspapers, particularly The
New York Times , misled readers into thinking the Communists could not possibly win the Russian Civil War of 1918–20, as detailed
in a study by Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz, published as a supplement to The New Republic , August 4, 1920. (Once canonical,
the study was for years assigned reading at journalism schools, but no longer it seems to be.)
The third and current episode grew out of the second but spread quickly through the media in the early 2000s with the demonization
of Vladimir Putin, Yeltsin's successor, and now is amply evidenced by mainstream coverage of the new Cold War, Russiagate's allegation
that "Russia attacked American democracy" in 2016, and much else related to Russia. This rendition may be the worst, certainly it
is the most dangerous.
Media malpractice has various elements -- among them, selective use of facts, some unverified, highly questionable narratives
or reporting based on those "facts," mingled with editorial commentary passed off as "analysis," buttressed by carefully selected
"expert sources," often anonymous, and amplified by carefully chosen opinion page contributors. Throughout is the systematic practice
of excluding developments (and opinion) that do not conform to the Times ' venerable motto, "All the News That's Fit to
Print." When it comes to Russia, the Times often decides politically what is fit and what is not. And thus the most recent
but exceedingly important example.
In 1990, Soviet Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed not only to the reunification of Germany, whose division was the epicenter
of that Cold War, but also, at the urging of the Western powers, particularly the United States, that the new Germany would be a
member of NATO. (Already embattled at home, Gorbachev was further weakened by his decision, which probably contributed to the attempted
coup against him in August 1991.)
Gorbachev made the decision based on assurances by his then–Western "partners" that in return NATO would never be expanded "one
inch eastward" toward Russia. (Today, having nearly doubled its member countries, the world's most powerful military alliance sits
on Russia's western borders.) At the time, it was known that President George H.W. Bush had especially persuaded Gorbachev through
Secretary of State James Baker's "not one inch" and other equally emphatic guarantees.
Now, however, the invaluable National Security Archive at George Washington University has established the historical truth by
publishing, on December 12 of last year, not only a detailed account of what Gorbachev was promised in 1990–91
but the relevant documents themselves . The truth, and the promises broken, are much more expansive than previously known: All
of the Western powers involved -- the US, the UK, France, Germany itself -- made the same promise to Gorbachev on multiple occasions
and in various emphatic ways. If we ask when the West, particularly Washington, lost Moscow as a potential strategic partner after
the end of the Soviet Union, this is where an explanation begins.
And yet, nearly a month after the publication of the National Security Archive documents, neither the Times nor The
Washington Post , which profess to be the nation's most important, reliable, and indispensable political newspapers, has published
one word about this revelation. (Certainly the two papers are pervasively important to other media, not only due to their daily national
syndicates but because today's broadcast media, especially CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and PBS, take most of their own Russia-related "reporting"
cues from the Times and the Post .)
How to explain the failure of the Times and Post to report or otherwise comment on the National Security Archive's
publication? It can hardly be their lack of space or their disinterest in Russia, which they featured regularly in one kind of unflattering
story or another -- and almost daily in the form of "Russiagate." Given their immense daily news-gathering capabilities, could both
papers have missed the story? Impossible, even more so considering that three lesser publications -- The National Interest
, on December 12; Bloomberg , on December 13; and The American Conservative , on December 22 -- reported and
commented on its significance at length.
Or perhaps the Times and Post consider the history and process of NATO expansion to be no longer newsworthy,
even though it has been the driving, escalatory factor behind the new US-Russian Cold War; already contributed to two US-Russian
proxy hot wars (in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine since 2014) as well as to NATO's ongoing buildup on Russia's borders in the Baltic
region, which is fraught with the possibility of an actual war between the nuclear superpowers; provoked Russia into reactions now
cited as "grave threats"; nearly vaporized politically both the once robust pro-American lobby in Moscow politics and the previously
widespread pro-American sentiments among Russian citizens; and implanted in at least one generation of the Russian policy elite the
conviction that the broken promise to Gorbachev represented characteristic American "betrayal and deceit."
Soviet Fates and Lost
Alternatives .) Russians can cite other instances of "deceit," including President George W. Bush's 2002 unilateral abrogation
of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and Obama's broken promise that he would not use a 2011 UN Security Council resolution to depose
Libyan leader Gaddafi. But it is the broken promise to Gorbachev that lingers as America's original sin, partly because it was the
first of many such perceived duplicities, but mainly because it has resulted in a Russia semi-encircled by US-led Western military
power, an encroachment that continues today.
Given all this, we must ask again: Why did neither the Times nor the Post report the archive revelations? Most
likely because the evidence fundamentally undermines their essential overarching narrative that Putin's Russia is solely responsible
for the new Cold War and all of its attendant conflicts and dangers, and therefore that no rethinking of US policy toward post-Soviet
Russia since 1991 is advisable or, it seems, permissible, certainly not by President Donald Trump. Therein lie the national-security
dangers of media malpractice, and this example, while of special importance, is far from the only one in recent years. In this regard,
the Times and Post seem contemptuous not only of their own professed journalistic standards but of their purportedly
cherished adage that democracy requires fully informed citizens.
If Americans cannot rely on the Times and Post , at least in regard to US-Russian relations, where can they
seek the information and analysis they need? There are many valuable alternative media outlets, but few hard-working citizens have
time to locate and consult them. Cohen recommends that they turn to two websites that almost daily aggregate reporting, analysis,
and opinion not to be found in the Times , Post , or most other mainstream publications. One is
Johnson's Russia List . The other is the website
of the American Committee for East-West Accord , of which Cohen is a board
member. Upon request, both will come to your computer. The former requests a nominal donation but does not insist on it. The latter
is free. For readers who worry about international affairs, the new US-Russian Cold War, and America itself, the information and
perspectives they will gain from these sites are invaluable.
It is something of a mystery that this should have escaped Gorbachev, although Cohen does say that Conservatives warned him
against going with the flow on this one. He ignored them.
There's an old saying about leopards and never changing their spots. I guess he was as fooled, as many are, that the appalling
history of the US was in each case a separate incident, involving and caused by different people, and therefor "it will be different
this time." Gorbachev was willing to overlook the horrific evidence of an Anglo West planning to destroy the Russia who had saved
their bacon by winning WWII for them; and to destroy her utterly and horrifically. That he could overlook that beggars belief.
It's so essential to get the bigger picture, to read the History of the Nations you are dealing with extensively, to determine
how to connect the dots to find the pattern, and to realise that ultimately nations are an aggregate of systems - and a system
is far more powerful than most individuals [until you find a rare person who knows how to break the system].
Sadly, it seems that they had fallen for the idea too, that, as V. P. said when Russia abandoned communism, their opponent would
"to them hand the sword". i.e. would become partners and equals. That was never going to happen. It also shows us, once again,
that all too often political leaders are not well enough educated, not well enough informed and not bright enough, to undertake
the job of national leader which they do.
And we are not interested nor thoughtful enough to demand better.
...And we may not be educated suficient to look through the matter.
Before 1968 in Nordic countries with Sweden had hollistic education systems, making academics able to see the whole picture.
After 1968-70 they changed the education system so the working class could get academic degrees, but separated the disciplines
so you only were able to see your part and not the whole picture and leaving out history and roots.
Newspeak was introduced and started.
Its about classes, deliberately leaving the knowledge and whole picture to the elite.
Any hollistic educated who analyse US history should be able to see that you deal with a hypocrite and liar country throughout
from start up til today.
When Russia with its excellent education system missed the point in 1990´es I think it maybe more due to their previous suffering
and emotional culture, than to actual foolishness as we can see the Russians quickly raised their heads again from the ashes.
Same happened here in Australia Tommy, they lowered the education standard so that anyone can obtain a University Degree under
the belief that everyone is entitled to one and not only those best suited. Now one has idiots running corporations and in politics.
Getting them out is the problem. I have always expressed concern that those who wish to go into politics and government should
present to the Public a full resume as anyone would who is seeking a senior position in a corporation.
Very true John.
If you look at the entire system, we see that immense power over the lives of millions of people is given to those who don't have
to show any form of qualification for the job; any training; or prior experience, assessment by qualified experience assessors.
In fact, all they have to be able do is to generate money for themselves by making promises to others using taxpayer money;
present themselves in a slick, eye catching fashion like an aspiring film actor auditioning for a role; lie; as Vladimir Putin
said "make promises better than those of your competitor"; and sell meaningless words better than a used car salesman.
In other words, present themselves to voters as an ignorant, inexperienced psychopathic, criminally fraudulent, snake oil salesman.
And then we wonder why that's exactly what we get as our "leaders". !!
Thank you John - yes I do feel deeply that as civilisations, we have strayed from so much that is balanced, natural, and optimal
for human growth and happiness. We have so much in our cultures that beggars belief in it's stupidity- and as always, the very
stupid are too stupid to know that they are very stupid. I see us preening ourselves as the epitome of civilisation, when research
into the distant past shows we have had about 3.5 thousand years of slow, non-stop collapse including an arrogant ignorance.
Yet the answers are so close to hand. It's only an understanding of where we have all gone wrong, and a willingness to do what
needs to be done to correct it which will stop us falling into the night, I suspect.
Then again, I remember that everything happens in circles, and follows Universal Laws. Maybe we have no course but to follow the
natural pattern we have put ourselves on try to learn from it.
Thanks for your kind words John.
Yes, all this was about the time they introduced the "expert". Prior to that idea, a well educated, intelligent person was
held to have a wide ranging education, and to be familiar with many different disciplines. They they got the "expert" idea - a
mechanic in my - then - University Department informed me that "expert means, here is x which marks the spot of a drip under pressure"
!! :-)
Now we have people who know more and more about less and less until they reach the pinnacle where they know absolutely everything
about nothing.
Yes, I think the Russian education got infected by America, and in the struggle to break free of all the other disasters that
caused - just to survive as a country and as a people - this is an issue that has had to be put on a back burner. But they are
doing fine in spite of it, and I'm sure will find their way back to the best of the Soviet times education.
I still (and know not alone) feel Gorbachev is a Traitor that "sold" the USSR, the People of the USSR for Personal ("friends")
gain .... so he knew what would happen !
Remember the people of the USSR wanted to work through the "problems / issues" leaving the USSR intact but Gorbachev decided
to GO AGAINST the Wishes of the People / Wishes of the country and allowed the regions to "break free" including denying the right
for Crimea to Return to RF (loaned to Ukraine while USSR existed) .... why would you Do that except for your own agenda !
And Where does Gorbachev live .... but in U$ america ... and every time he visits RF he comes with masses of Body Guards
That last part is very interesting Vtran - I didn't know he lived in America.
I hadn't caught up with any documentation about his "friends", although there is the comment - with the long/lat given of the
area on the documentary "The Unknown Putin" - that Gorbachev sold to US what wasn't his to sell - a huge chunk of sea off the
coast of Russia, containing massive amounts of oil deposits!! He did it to get the money to try and defeat Yeltsin!! So, he has
a track record, and as the saying goes "he who lies once, lies ten times". The principle holds for everything, as well as lying.
I also didn't know that there were grass roots movements of people trying to stop the collapse of the USSR.
Can you recommend any good modern history resource which covers these events please?
I got a lot from that excellent documentary, but as is so often one is left wanting more.
I know Vladimir Putin doesn't like him - not one bit. I could "read" it from the Stone Interviews :-)
I certainly agree with you - that if he did all that, selling out the people of Russia - no way does he deserve to be grouped
with them, they aren't "his" people, in that case - then yes, he was a sellout traitor. Should count himself lucky to be alive!!
Isabella,, I will look for a document regarding Gorbachev selling out the people of the USSR .... However my comment is personnel
... all Russians I know, all people of the ex USSR (except those of fanatical Ukraine) speak as One ...The did not at the USSR
to break ... their views were "over ridden" !
-
Interesting comment of "selling off which does not belong" reminiscent of Alaska where the Gold supposedly exchange disappeared
after the western inspired revolution of 1918 !
Quote: Over 500 treaties were made with American Indian tribes, primarily for land cessations, but 500 treaties were also broken,
changed or nullified when it served the government's interests.
Because U$ Americans citizens thought the had "Given away STOLEN Worthless Land" .... and then found that "Worthless Land"
contained "Yellow Gold" ...... later more so called "Worthless Land" contained Black Gold and so it went on
Yupp...
Like the mineral & natural wealth of Russia, doesn't belong to Russia, but belong to the WORLD (a.k.a. City of London/Wall St)
??
Mad Madeleine Notsobright.
Who was Christopher Columbus? Any can check it out. My guess as another Vtran.
- What do you see?
- No gold yet?
- Of course there is gold there
It was the same as Europa. War in Indians replaced war on Muslim.
This a a very unhelpful spin by Cohen. Dugin, addressing the end of the cold war, reports that Brzezinski once told him, "we
tricked you." That's what happened. This is what Russians need to think about when speaking with their common law partners.
I have wondered many times how the S Union, a nation with so many brilliant people, could chose someone like Gorbatchev to
lead the country.
Reagan and Thatcher did whatever they wanted with him. They achieved all their objectives in dealing with Gorbachev because he
was receptive, soft and a puppet. Worst of all, he was a mix of an idiot and naif by believing them.
It was hard to build the S Union, very hard, and Gorbatchev wanted to make a transition from socialism to capitalism in one year.
Only an idiot could think like that.
He is the main responsible not only of the demise of the S Union but of the shameful accumulation of wealth in the hands of a
bunch of soulless oligarchs whose wealth, to date, remain untouched.
As a communist, I ask myself how could a guy like him lead the S Union. Yeltsin was another calamity but the main responsible
of the debacle is Gorbachev.
As a result of his stupidity, not only millions of Soviets encountered poverty and criminality, but he opened the way to the unipolar
world. Many invasions took place because the US. did not face any opposition.
North Korea had to rearm itself to protect. Cuba underwent a terrible period.
Gorbachev will go down in the history of Russia and communist from across the world as an idiot, as an irresponsible leader and
as a traitor.
This is very true. Millions died as a result of this colossal stupidity. Tens of millions more suffered appalling misery and
destitution. Several countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, have been completely destroyed. These are crimes on a gargantuan
scale. And there has been zero accountability.
Right, zero accountability because the S Union was influential on world institutions. Because of "imported liberalism in 365
days" many factories closed (because they were not "modern"), many good engineers became poor, families destroyed, all sorts of
gangs emerged, collective property and natural resources went to oligarchs without scruples for a cheap price. And there was no
bread in stores.
All thanks to Gorbachev who was in power almost 17 years, a long period in which he succumbed to the sweet-talk of Reagan and
Thatcher.
Having lived through the incredible 90s and the end of the Soviet Union, I believe that it was not wrong for Gorbachev to seek
partnership with the West. That move brought all of mankind back from the precipice of total extinction.
It was the LYING and deceitful actions of the "superior and civilized" West that betrayed the world and their own interests, just
to expand their territory and control, like some mindless plague that knows no morality.
There must be balance in world affairs.
Power corrupts and absolute power has corrupted the US/EU/NATO gang absolutely.
The West's loss is the worlds gain.
Russia will lead the free nations away from the rotten and putrid fate offered by the death merchants of the West.
Russia cannot seem to be able to lead itself from the cluches of the ooligarks who out send capital Russia desparately needs.
If and when Russia cleans up the mess that Gorby, Gelsman, and others made, there will not be any free nations or any hope for
peace and freedom in this late stage of mankind's probationary time.
No wonder we are in deep trouble! How shall I say? Well Stephen Cohen is too pedestrian, to put it mildly. There is nothing
I have ever heard him say that I did not know years ago. Wow the NYT and WaPo both publish fake news and omit what isn't convenient
ideologically. Go suck eggs granny. Even if large numbers of people in the US now listen to him (which I very much doubt), he's
too late by decades and will probably never catch up with the fact that 9/11 was an inside job/CIA/Mossad operation. As for Gorbachev,
Yeltsin, US deception, etc., he could have asked me a thing or six back in the 80s when Gorbachev was best buddies with Reagan
and Thatcher, it was bleedin' obvious that he was a dupe, though at first I was hopeful for glasnost and perestroika.
Not that I didn't have hopes for the Soviet Union anyway, nor that I didn't understand hanging on to Eastern Europe for too
long, because of US betrayal after WW2 ... heck Prof Cohen, since when hasn't Russia been betrayed?. Too late for all those who
either couldn't or wouldn't be informed decades ago. Too late for there to be any chance of averting escalation to WW3, unless
by more or less luck, such as the US internally imploding like the Soviet Union did but, unlike the Soviet Union's collapse by
US design, collapse of its own hubris and Empire over-reach, perhaps. Academics generally do not impress me.
.
Sorry if I have condensed too much, but I daresay some will know what I'm getting at.
As a "well informed American", a retired Marine, and having spent some two decades in research of our "national history", as
it relates to the status of the world today, I have to say, I've not deliberately read either paper since I was in third or fourth
grade, and then only because we lived in Massachusetts for a couple years.
I spent nine years in Chicago, before entering the Marines, and as a "paper boy", laughed at headlines every day, knowing the
lies for what they were, and having "truth" solely because my parents subscribed me to Popular Mechanics and Popular Science,
because I'm dyslexic, had problems in school, but am endowed with talent in mechanics and the hard sciences.
Those two magazines spent their pages defining the world of mechanics, moving forward, and the world of science, advancing, and
while most facts regarding "our state of our Nation" were indirect, just part of background, when a boy reads such cover to cover,
every month dozens of times, for a decade and more, the bits and pieces add up and paint a picture behind the "mechanical issue
or science issue", that is easily seen, looking past, and is intrinsically absolutely true, because no part was put up for the
purpose of "the big picture", but the big picture naturally emerges, when sufficient bits and pieces of data accumulate, and we
add them to what has long been accepted as true, tested and tried.
Having come to understandings by multiple articles on definitive science and engineering, with background bits and pieces coalescing,
simply reading headlines were nothing but amusing, and the greatest factor was wondering how adults could believe this trash.
I began with the intent to debunk all the conspiracy theories regarding McCarthy and government, and ended up with the certainty
McCarthy was right, he simply named them wrong, they were "Bolsheviks", using socialism and communism for cover, with the full
intent of overthrowing our government, and they have continued to this day.
We have become "an empire whose people follow the Emperor, even when he dances around with no clothes, never believing that boy
who actually sees.
Semper Fidelis,
John McClain
Vanceboro, NC, USA
Well said. It is quite refreshing, as I have been upsetting a few of your neighbours over on Info Wars. The activists, who
are desperate for a war with Iran, managed to leave Breit Bart for the day and flock to one of the articles. Together with those
that have no idea that the US is in a bad way, economically. As I find myself being labelled a Soros paid troll. The standard
of debate is quite soul destroying, until you can get somebody, who does not need personal insult to enhance their argument. Which
is so liberating.
For those who know what Russians are this is no surprise. A classless herd of sheep lead by a maniacal leader. If you think
ISIS or Hitler were bad you should read about Russian history and the atrocities they have perpetrated and continue today.
Off topic, but, related. A few interesting articles that all merge together.
Putin: Turkey not responsible for drone attack; Russia knows who was
Russian President calls drone attack "provocation" aimed at causing rift between Russia and Turkey...
http://theduran.com/putin-t...
How does Ukraine, fit into it, bearing in mind that Ukraine is planning similar in Crimea. The same Ukraine that does so well
from having the US Bio-weapons factories up and running. Not forgetting that NATO is also setting up a base in Khakov, non-NATO
territory and close to the bio-weapons factories. Then you have the mother craft, found hovering around the Russian bases in Syria
and her sister working so hard around Crimea.
Remember the Pentagon begging for Russian DNA? Now what was that all about?
Kharkov Is Forcibly Prepared For The Status of a NATO Base (remember Ukraine is a non-NATO nation)...http://
www.stalkerzone.org/kharkov ...
US Military Bio-labs in Ukraine, Production of Bio-weapons and "Disease Causing Agents"
In 2015, American alternative media outlet InfoWars accused the Pentagon of developing new types of biological weapons in secret
military laboratories in Ukraine. The facilities were constructed under the terms of the bilateral agreement signed between the
Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the Department of Defense in 2012.
Today thirteen American military bio-labs operate in Ukraine, The International Mass Media Agency reports. They employ only American
specialists being entirely funded from the budget of the Department of Defense. Local authorities have pledged not to interfere
in their work. These military labs are reported to be mainly involved in the study and production of disease-causing agents of
smallpox, anthrax and botulism. The facilities are located in the following Ukrainian cities: Odessa, Vinnytsia, Uzhgorod, Lviv
(three), Kharkiv, Kyiv (four), Kherson, Ternopil.
Slightly off topic, but, another story of the West trying to upset Russia. Followed by what came next, which made me seriously
laugh. The first article is well worth reading, just for the awe aspect and mega congratulations to the team. The 2nd article,
just made me laugh. You gotta love those sanctions. Where there is a will there is a way.
President Gorbachev has made clear several times that the agreement reached with the former Soviet Union regarding NATO and
the reunification of Germany was specific to the East/West line through Germany. To date Germany and NATO have kept that promise.
What are Russia's rights? Well, Moscow simply has no right to expect that her neighbors do not enjoy the sovereign right to
join any alliances each may wish.
James Baker (and others) told Gorbachev that NATO will not expand to the East so western powers are a bunch liars, that's for
sure.
As for sovereign rights, that also depends if the organisation is willing to accept a certain country, not only if the country
wants to join it. Germany and France for example blocked Ukraine and Georgia from joining NATO in 2008. Countries are also allowed
to join NATO in order to contribute to its security and i'm not sure about the "gain" of taking small countries on the border
of the biggest nuclear power. That increases the possibility for arms race and for war between the major powers, that's for sure.
Also it is unclear how "sovereign" these decisions are, since lots of western money was invested in media, NGOs and political
leaders and parties in Eastern Europe in order to promote pro-NATO views. US government officials bragged about "investing" 5
billion dollars in Ukraine for that purpose.
So those countries and their politicians were basically bribed, while their population propagandised via foreign sponsored
media. This has nothing to do with sovereignity, rather its about interfering in other countries affairs.
Moreover, the US uses loopholes in international law in order to support rebels in various countries, to stage coups and to
interefere in democracy and elections, with the aim of changing the politics of the target country, and even balkanising/disintegrating
the target country.
Well, if the US can do that, others can too, hence the rebels in Ukraine, who are now preventing the country from joining NATO.
It could be much more simple. An agreement for buffer zone between NATO and Russia, so that peace and stability are secured.
Or it could be "my way or the high way" mentality, which of course leads to wars and destabilisation. Which will not be a good
thing in the nuclear proliferation era.
Russia wants peace and stability. The US does not. Its entire geopolitical strategy is based on destabilising the rest of the
world, so that it remains divided and mired in internal squabbles, and no strong power could arise there. In addition to fueling
conflict and selling weapons to both sides while staying out of it. Divide and rule.
The Russian (and Chinese - OBOR) strategy will be to stabilise, unite and interconnect the rest of the world, particularly
Eurasia, in order to overthrow the US - the great disruptor. And as of now, they are winning.
Personally speaking, I have little choice but to go with what Presidents Gorbachev and Reagan, along with FM Shevardnadze and
Secretary Baker, have said on the subject. Not moving NATO troops or equipment one step east of the East/West German line of the
time was promised. This happens to fall precisely in line with what German Chancellor Schroeder has said and written as well.
The context of the discussions were in the context of Germany, not the whole of Europe.
According to President Gorbachev the collapse of the Soviet Union was not conceivable at that time. Thus, according to Mr.
Gorbachev, he never participated in any discussion of Soviet States joining (or not joining) NATO.
Lastly, I reject the popular notion in some circles that all who align themselves with Russia do so out of free will but those
who align themselves with the U.S. and the West must be corrupt or coorced. I believe such ideas ring of arrogance and dismissiveness.
This is not what recent US media says on ths topic.
"the collection shows that top officials from the U.S., Germany and the U.K. all
offered assurances to Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze
that NATO would not expand toward the Russian borders. The documents
make clear that the Western politicians meant no expansion to Eastern
European countries, not just the East German territory."
The context here is about NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, to the east of Germany, whether the new (former soviet) states
existed or not.
Large parts of EE were never part of the USSR.
"Lastly, I reject the popular notion in some circles that all who align
themselves with Russia do so out of free will but those who align
themselves with the U.S. and the West must be corrupt or coorced. I
believe such ideas ring of arrogance and dismissiveness."
Thanks for the straw man, but i did not say that.
About this, i will say several things. First, there are no bigger and more sophisticated liars than western elites. They are
specialists in hiding and masking their interests behind "freedom", "democracy" and "human rights". The russians are more direct
and directly talk about russian interests, economic gains, "the fate of our people in this or that country", etc.
Second, if you look at russian foreign policy docs and statements you will notice that russians embrace multipolarity and significantly
lower level of interference in other peoples affairs. Specifically, the russians do not try to impose their "system", or developmental
model, or culturo-religious model on other countries. After the fall of communism, Russia no longer believes that it should impose
its "model" or "system" on other countries, and it does not believe that such an attempt could work either. So Russia accepts
the cultural and developmental differences and diversity in the different countries of the world, and does not try to remake it
in its own image, or push for "one size fits all" models. For example Russia does not believe that its own "state capitalism"
should be imposed everywhere, the way the US believes that its own neo-liberal capitalism should be imposed everywhere.
In comparison, the West and especially the US is messianic and self-obsessed, with strong belief in its own superiority and
maniacal desire to impose its own cultural and economic models on everyone else, whether they like it, or not. It thus believes
that it "knows better" than anyone else, and therefore should rule the world "for its own good".
In other words the US interferes everywhere and sees the whole world as its playground and even property, something that it
can change or remake the way it sees fit. Its like someone who wants to make decisions instead of you "for your own good", which
implies that everyone else is mentally inferior to the US, that the whole world is in custody of the US "parent", who knows "better"
than anyone else. It becomes crazed and obsessed if its model and culture are rejected by someone, as if that fatally weakens
its confidence in itself.
In comparison, the russians are much more direct that things are about pure interests, and are also not interested in interfering
at the level or scope the US does. They do not want to remake Poland, Britain, Korea or Iraq in their own image and are ok with
whatever culture or economic model these people have. Russia has several military bases abroad in comparison to 700 bases for
the US, and that tells you what is going on. Russia can also interfere sometimes, but for far more practical (and real) reasons,
mostly in their neighbours, with the aim of ensuring its own security (anti-terrorism), or for making sure that NATO military
can not be deployed en masse near its borders. There can be also some economic interference (gas disputes) or attempts to protect
russian minorities abroad. But russian interference does not come close to the level of the US one, or the scope of the US one,
and certainly does not include messianic dreams about remaking the whole world in its own image, and Russia definitely does not
see the world as its playground. The russian embrace of multipolarity means that Russia accepts that there will be countries with
vastly different cultures, economic and developmental models, even very different than the russian one, that there will be many
powers, and that Russia can not impose its views on the rest of the planet.
The attack on Russian airbase in Syria is a sign that the Central Intelligence Agency is sleepwalking into 3rd world war
For the CIA's information at the start of WW3, the CIA will be nuked since everyone knows it is the brain and actor for the
entire Western group of criminals.
CIA you will be nuked. Those CIA agents who survived will be hunted down in different countries like the dogs they are. Many
CIA superior officers will sell out their boses and subordinates to survive at the end there would be no more CIA. Just like the
NAZIs.
Look up DUMBs and YouTube a guy called Phil Schneider. The elites (including the CIA) will be as safe and secure as possible
in the event of a nuclear war.
Russia was not betrayed by USA. Russia was letting themselves willingly being betrayed, this is a big difference. The Russians
were shining all over their faces, dreaming, hoping to become Europeans, and getting coca-cola, friendships, scolarships and dollars
from the Americans...............LOL.
The Russians loved to be betrayed man, you loved it man................LOL.
If you really believe your words then they just reveal that you have an underdeveloped character and lack of empathy towards
your own self ... and towards others ... and an even larger deficit in history ... the uprising in Russia 1991 and tanks shooting
holes in the White House in Moscow were absolutely not about becoming Europeans or the want of Coca Cola and Big Macs that were
then introduced and made available thanks to Yeltsin ... a US puppet ... you love nothing Tommy ... and you are LOLing yourself
in an illusion if you try making others believe anybody would love to be betrayed ...
I have got a project for you, if interested. Andrew came up with a wonderful idea for one of your images. A pyramid, of 'yes'
men/women, with their noses firmly embedded in the butts of those above them. If you fancy some artwork, public friendly and nothing
that would frighten us, or get you banned, I will leave it to you.
You can even use these characters and their friends that arrived in 2017.
"... Cohen, who has been quite vocal against the Russophobic witch hunt gripping the nation , believes that this falsified 35 page report is part of an "endgame" to mortally wound Trump before he even sets foot in the White House, by grasping at straws to paint him as a puppet of the Kremlin. The purpose of these overt attempts to cripple Trump, which have relied on ham-handed intelligence reports that, according to Cohen "even the New York Times referred to as lacking any evidence whatsoever," is to stop any kind of détente or cooperation with Russia. ..."
With eyebrows suspiciously furrowed, Tucker Carlson sat down tonight with NYU Professor of Russian Studies and contributor to
The Nation , Stephen Cohen, to discuss the 35 page #FakeNews dossier which has gripped the nation with nightmares of golden showers
and other perverted conduct which was to be used by Russia to keep Trump on a leash.
The left leaning Cohen, who holds a Ph.D. in government and Russian studies from Columbia, taught at Princeton for 30 years before
moving to NYU. He has spent a lifetime deeply immersed in US-Russian relations, having been both a long standing friend of Mikhail
Gorbachev and an advisor to President George H.W. Bush. His wife is also the editor of uber liberal " The Nation," so it's safe to
assume he's not shilling for Trump - and Tucker was right to go in with eyebrows guarded against such a heavyweight.
Cohen, who has been quite vocal against the Russophobic witch hunt
gripping the nation , believes that this
falsified 35 page report is part of an "endgame" to mortally wound Trump before he even sets foot in the White House, by grasping
at straws to paint him as a puppet of the Kremlin. The purpose of these overt attempts to cripple Trump, which have relied on ham-handed
intelligence reports that, according to Cohen "even the New York Times referred to as lacking any evidence whatsoever," is to stop
any kind of détente or cooperation with Russia.
Cohen believes that these dangerous accusations attempting to brand a US President as a puppet of a foreign government constitute
a "grave American national security threat."
TYT Politics Reporter Michael Tracey ( https://Twitter.com/mtracey ) sits down with NYU &
Princeton Professor, Stephen F. Cohen, to discuss the establishments response to the Russia
investigation. What role has the establishment played in the Russia hysteria?
Don't forget to tell us your thoughts in the comment section below!
"... Cohen's appearance on Carlson's show last night demonstrated again at what a blistering pace public opinion in the West about Putin and Russia is shifting, for the better. ..."
"... Cohen is always good, but last night he nailed it, calling the media's coverage of Hamburg 'pornography'. ..."
"... It was just a year ago, pre-Trump, that professor Cohen was banned from all the networks, from any major media outlet, and being relentlessly pilloried by the neocon media for being a naive fool for defending Putin and Russia. ..."
"... "The first thing you notice is just how much the press is rooting for this meeting between our president and the Russian President to fail. It's a kind of pornography. Just as there's no love in pornography, there's no American national interest in this bashing of Trump and Putin. ..."
"... Carlson tried to draw Cohen out about who exactly in Washington is so against Assad, and why, and Cohen deflected, demurring - 'I don't know - I'm not an expert'. Of course he knows, as does Carlson - it is an unholy alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and their neocon friends in Washington and the media who are pushing this criminal policy, who support ISIS, deliberately. But they can't say so, because, ... well, because. Ask Rupert Murdoch. ..."
Cohen's appearance on Carlson's show last night demonstrated again at what a blistering pace public opinion in the West about
Putin and Russia is shifting, for the better.
Cohen is always good, but last night he nailed it, calling the media's coverage of Hamburg 'pornography'.
Ahh, the power of the apt phrase.
It was just a year ago, pre-Trump, that professor Cohen was banned from all the networks, from any major media outlet, and
being relentlessly pilloried by the neocon media for being a naive fool for defending Putin and Russia.
Last night he was the featured guest on the most watched news show in the country, being cheered on by the host, who has him on
as a regular. And Cohen isn't remotely a conservative. He is a contributing editor at the arch-liberal Nation magazine, of which
his wife is the editor. It doesn't really get pinker than that.
Some choice quotes here, but the whole thing is worth a listen:
"The first thing you notice is just how much the press is rooting for this meeting between our president and the Russian
President to fail. It's a kind of pornography. Just as there's no love in pornography, there's no American national interest in
this bashing of Trump and Putin.
As a historian let me tell you the headline I would write instead:
"What we witnessed today in Hamburg was a potentially historic new detente. an anti-cold-war partnership begun by Trump and
Putin but meanwhile attempts to sabotage it escalate." I've seen a lot of summits between American and Russian presidents, ...
and I think what we saw today was potentially the most fateful meeting ... since the Cold War.
The reason is, is that the relationship with Russia is so dangerous and we have a president who might have been crippled or
cowed by these Russiagate attacks ... yet he was not. He was politically courageous. It went well. They got important things done.
I think maybe today we witnessed president Trump emerging as an American statesman."
Cohen goes on to say that the US should ally with Assad, Iran, and Russia to crush ISIS, with Carlson bobbing his head up and
down in emphatic agreement.
Carlson tried to draw Cohen out about who exactly in Washington is so against Assad, and why, and Cohen deflected, demurring
- 'I don't know - I'm not an expert'. Of course he knows, as does Carlson - it is an unholy alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and
their neocon friends in Washington and the media who are pushing this criminal policy, who support ISIS, deliberately. But they can't
say so, because, ... well, because. Ask Rupert Murdoch.
Things are getting better in the US media, but we aren't quite able to call a spade a spade in the land of the free and the home
of the brave.
"... "The recent brutal stabbing of a left-wing anti-war activist named Stas Serhiyenko illustrates the threat posed by these extremists. Serhiyenko and his fellow activists believe the perpetrators belonged to the neo-Nazi group C14 (whose name comes from a 14-word phrase used by white supremacists). The attack took place on the anniversary of Hitler's birthday, and C14's leader published a statement that celebrated Serhiyenko's stabbing immediately afterward. ..."
"... The attack on Serhiyenko is just the tip of the iceberg. More recently C14 beat up a socialist politician while other ultranationalist thugs stormed the Lviv and Kiev City Councils. Far-right and neo-Nazi groups have also assaulted or disrupted art exhibitions, anti-fascist demonstrations, a "Ukrainians Choose Peace" event, LGBT events, a social center, media organizations, court proceedings and a Victory Day march celebrating the anniversary of the end of World War II. According to a study from activist organization Institute Respublica, the problem is not only the frequency of far-right violence, but the fact that perpetrators enjoy widespread impunity. It's not hard to understand why Kiev seems reluctant to confront these violent groups. For one thing, far-right paramilitary groups played an important role early in the war against Russian-supported separatists. Kiev also fears these violent groups could turn on the government itself - something they've done before and continue to threaten to do. ..."
"... To be clear, Russian propaganda about Ukraine being overrun by Nazis or fascists is false. Far-right parties such as Svoboda or Right Sector draw little support from Ukrainians." ..."
"... "Indeed, the brazen willingness of Vita Zaverukha – a renowned neo-Nazi out on bail and under house arrest after killing two police officers - to post pictures of herself after storming a popular Kiev restaurant with 50 other nationalists demonstrates the far right's confidence in their immunity from government prosecution. ..."
"... [T]he government must also break any connections between law enforcement agencies and far-right organizations. The clearest example of this problem lies in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is headed by Arsen Avakov. Avakov has a long-standing relationship with the Azov Battalion, a paramilitary group that uses the SS symbol as its insignia and which, with several others, was integrated into the army or National Guard at the beginning of the war in the East. Critics have accused Avakov of using members of the group to threaten an opposition media outlet. As at least one commentator has pointed out, using the National Guard to combat ultranationalist violence is likely to prove difficult if far-right groups have become part of the Guard itself. ..."
"... Avakov's Deputy Minister Vadym Troyan was a member of the neo-Nazi Patriot of Ukraine (PU) paramilitary organization, while current Ministry of Interior official Ilya Kiva – a former member of the far-right Right Sector party whose Instagram feed is populated with images of former Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini – has called for gays "to be put to death." And Avakov himself used the PU to promote his business and political interests while serving as a governor in eastern Ukraine, and as interior minister formed and armed the extremist Azov battalion led by Andriy Biletsky, a man nicknamed the "White Chief" who called for a crusade against "Semite-led sub-humanity ..."
"... In one notorious incident, media captured images of swastika-tattooed thugs - who police claimed were only job applicants wanting to have "fun" - giving the Nazi salute in a police building in Kiev. This cannot be allowed to go on, and it's just as important for Ukrainian democracy to cleanse extremists from law enforcement as it is to remove corrupt officials from former president Viktor Yanukovych's regime under Ukraine's "lustration" policy." ..."
"... Yarosh is an MP, Parubiy would, if the same set of events occurred as in February 2014, become President, as Turchynov did. Nazi's/far right are in the SBU, Police, parts of their academia, military ..."
"... Its an intentionally idiotic statement by Cohen because Ukrainian political parties can come and go at the drop of the hat. All this just means that the 2 million Nazi voters in 2012 election have chosen these newly created parties because a new line of what is " mainstream" has been drawn in Ukraine. ..."
"... Cohen is no idiot, I think he is just covering his ass and preparing his exit strategy. In the hopes of keeping his press card after Ukraine goes totally South. Cohen always knew these guys were Nazis, now he has to pretend to his reading public that he wasn't quite aware. ..."
"... They always use that to pooh-pooh the suggestion that Nazism is influential in Ukraine – but look! They only get tiny levels of support in elections! That matters little when people are appointed to political positions rather than voted into them. There are so many things – the dissolving of opposition political parties, the uberpatriotic signage everywhere exhorting citizens to report their neighbours if they suspect separatist sympathies, the hit list (Mirotvorets) of those who failed to shout the government line when prompted until told to stop – that simply scream "FASCISM!!!" ..."
"... But it is inconvenient for the west to see those things, because it could not acknowledge seeing them and continue to support the country and government which did them. The USA is an old hand at unseeing things which don't fit the narrative. Unfortunately, it has evolved into a nation which is good at unseeing obstacles as well; obstacles which are present and prevent it from achieving its goals. These are expected to disappear before the eraser called 'exceptionalism'. ..."
Into the breach – once more! Or – once again about honest, balanced and tolerant Western Media
™, SUDDENLY finding out that there are roving bands of neo-nazis in the Ukraine. Why this particular
article is important? First of all – because it's WaPo – a fearless crusader and enabler of leakers
in anything Trump+Russia related. To doubt WaPo for a certain category of the people is sacrilege.
Second – because of WHO wrote this article, namely Joshua Cohen, former (?) USAID chief honcho
in realization of the "economic reforms" on the territory of the former USSR – a thoroughly handshakable
person, judging by his last name.
Thirdly – the amount of evidence provided in one article combined with proof links to serve
as the future reference material. Links are to very-very kosher and Ukrainian sources – so you
can't accuse them in good faith of being Kremlenite propaganda.
Blah-blah-blah – evul Russia, blah-blah, and then:
"The recent brutal stabbing of a left-wing anti-war activist named Stas Serhiyenko illustrates
the threat posed by these extremists. Serhiyenko and his fellow activists believe the perpetrators
belonged to the neo-Nazi group C14 (whose name comes from a 14-word phrase used by white supremacists).
The attack took place on the anniversary of Hitler's birthday, and C14's leader published a
statement
that celebrated Serhiyenko's stabbing immediately afterward.
The attack on Serhiyenko is just the tip of the iceberg. More recently C14
beat up a socialist politician while other ultranationalist thugs stormed the
Lviv and Kiev City Councils. Far-right and neo-Nazi groups have also assaulted or disrupted
art exhibitions, anti-fascist demonstrations, a "Ukrainians Choose Peace" event, LGBT events,
a social center, media organizations,
court proceedings and a Victory Day march celebrating the anniversary of the end of World
War II.
According to a study from activist organization Institute Respublica, the problem is not only
the frequency of far-right violence, but the fact that perpetrators enjoy widespread impunity.
It's not hard to understand why Kiev seems reluctant to confront these violent groups. For one
thing, far-right paramilitary groups played an important role early in the war against Russian-supported
separatists. Kiev also fears these violent groups could turn on the government itself - something
they've
done before and continue to threaten to do.
To be clear, Russian propaganda about Ukraine being overrun by Nazis or fascists is false.
Far-right parties such as Svoboda or Right Sector draw little support from Ukrainians."
Full stop here. First of all – "Russian propaganda" (and the Western propaganda understands
by that all Russian press, except a few "brave ones" that suck foreign grants tit of theirs) claims
no such a thing. Second – it is Poroshenko and his government who renames streets after Bandera
and Shukhevitch. Third – in the second half of the article Mr. Cohen basically proves, that said
roving bands all BUT overrun the Ukraine, while the alleged lack of support does not translate
in the active resistance to them – which is what's enough for them to reign supreme:
"Indeed, the brazen willingness of Vita Zaverukha – a renowned neo-Nazi out on bail and
under house arrest after killing two police officers -
to post pictures of herself after storming a popular Kiev restaurant with 50 other nationalists
demonstrates the far right's confidence in their immunity from government prosecution.
[ ]
[T]he government must also break any connections between law enforcement agencies and far-right
organizations. The clearest example of this problem lies in the Ministry of Internal Affairs,
which is headed by Arsen Avakov. Avakov has a long-standing relationship with the Azov Battalion,
a paramilitary group that uses the SS symbol as its insignia and which, with several others, was
integrated into the army or National Guard at the beginning of the war in the East. Critics have
accused Avakov of using members of the group to threaten an opposition media outlet. As at least
one commentator has pointed out, using the National Guard to combat ultranationalist violence
is likely to prove difficult if far-right groups have become part of the Guard itself.
Avakov's Deputy Minister Vadym Troyan was a member of the neo-Nazi Patriot of Ukraine (PU)
paramilitary organization, while current Ministry of Interior official Ilya Kiva – a former member
of the far-right Right Sector party whose Instagram feed is populated with images of former Italian
fascist leader Benito Mussolini – has called for gays "to be put to death." And Avakov himself
used the PU to promote his business and political interests while serving as a governor in eastern
Ukraine, and as interior minister
formed and armed the extremist Azov battalion led by Andriy Biletsky, a man nicknamed the
"White Chief" who called for a crusade against "Semite-led sub-humanity."
[ ]
In one notorious incident, media captured images of swastika-tattooed thugs - who police
claimed were only job applicants wanting to have "fun" - giving the Nazi salute in a police building
in Kiev. This cannot be allowed to go on, and it's just as important for Ukrainian democracy to
cleanse extremists from law enforcement as it is to remove corrupt officials from former president
Viktor Yanukovych's regime under Ukraine's "lustration" policy."
"To be clear, Russian propaganda about Ukraine being overrun by Nazis or fascists is false.
Far-right parties such as Svoboda or Right Sector draw little support from Ukrainians ."
True (about the level of support), but irrelevant, Mr. Cohen!
It doesn't matter if these fascists enjoy an approval rating of 5% or .005%
You yourself said that these perps enjoy "widespread impunity" --
They can do whatever they want, kill anybody they please, and never get punished --
That's the literal meaning of the word "impunity".
Yarosh is an MP, Parubiy would, if the same set of events occurred as in February 2014, become
President, as Turchynov did. Nazi's/far right are in the SBU, Police, parts of their academia,
military
Its an intentionally idiotic statement by Cohen because Ukrainian political parties can come
and go at the drop of the hat. All this just means that the 2 million Nazi voters in 2012 election
have chosen these newly created parties because a new line of what is " mainstream" has been
drawn in Ukraine.
That's why I found it more than a little odd what is happening in France now .a new party
under Macron has been created and occupies that vast majority of seats .this is the type of thing
you would see in a banana republic.
Cohen is no idiot, I think he is just covering his ass and preparing his exit strategy.
In the hopes of keeping his press card after Ukraine goes totally South.
Cohen always knew these guys were Nazis, now he has to pretend to his reading public that he wasn't
quite aware.
He was duped!
Or maybe the turning point, which got his Jewish blood boiling was Biletsky calling his ethnic
group a "Semite-led sub-humanity."
Cohen: "Oh, I never realized these people could be so hateful!" – LOL!
They always use that to pooh-pooh the suggestion that Nazism is influential in Ukraine
– but look! They only get tiny levels of support in elections! That matters little when people
are appointed to political positions rather than voted into them. There are so many things – the
dissolving of opposition political parties, the uberpatriotic signage everywhere exhorting citizens
to report their neighbours if they suspect separatist sympathies, the hit list (Mirotvorets) of
those who failed to shout the government line when prompted until told to stop – that simply scream
"FASCISM!!!"
But it is inconvenient for the west to see those things, because it could not acknowledge
seeing them and continue to support the country and government which did them. The USA is an old
hand at unseeing things which don't fit the narrative. Unfortunately, it has evolved into a nation
which is good at unseeing obstacles as well; obstacles which are present and prevent it from achieving
its goals. These are expected to disappear before the eraser called 'exceptionalism'.
The canard about levels of public support for Nazism in Ukraine is used to suggest that if
Russia is spouting propaganda about this, then everything it says is propaganda.
"... For the neocons in 2016, there also was the excited expectation of a Hillary Clinton presidency to give more momentum to the expensive New Cold War. But then Trump, who had argued for a new détente with Russia, managed to eke out an Electoral College win. ..."
Where is Stanley Kubrick when we need him? If he hadn't died in 1999, he would be the perfect
director to transform today's hysteria over Russia into a theater-of-the-absurd movie reprising his
Cold War classic, "Dr. Strangelove," which savagely satirized the madness of nuclear brinksmanship
and the crazed ideology behind it.
A scene from "Dr. Strangelove," in which the bomber pilot (played by actor Slim Pickens) rides
a nuclear bomb to its target in the Soviet Union.
To prove my point, The Washington Post on Thursday published
a lengthy story entitled in the print editions "Alarm at Russian in White House" about a Russian
photographer who was allowed into the Oval Office to photograph President Trump's meeting with Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The Post cited complaints from former U.S. intelligence officials who criticized the presence
of the Russian photographer as "a potential security breach" because of "the danger that a listening
device or other surveillance equipment could have been brought into the Oval Office while hidden
in cameras or other electronics."
To bolster this alarm, the Post cited a Twitter comment from President Obama's last deputy CIA
director, David S. Cohen, stating "No, it was not" a sound decision to admit the Russian photographer
who also works for the Russian news agency, Tass, which published the photo.
One could picture Boris and Natasha, the evil spies in the Bullwinkle cartoons, disguised as photographers
slipping listening devices between the cushions of the sofas.
Or we could hear how Russians are again threatening to "impurify all of our precious bodily fluids,"
as "Dr. Strangelove" character, Gen. Jack D. Ripper, warned us in the 1964 movie.
Watching that brilliant dark comedy again might actually be a good idea to remind us how crazy
Americans can get when they're pumped up with anti-Russian propaganda, as is happening again now.
Taking Down Trump
I realize that many Democrats, liberals and progressives hate Donald Trump so much that they believe
that any pretext is justified in taking him down, even if that plays into the hands of the neoconservatives
and other warmongers. Many people who detest Trump view Russia-gate as the most likely path to achieve
Trump's impeachment, so this desirable end justifies whatever means.
Boris and Natasha, the evil spies from the Rocky and Bullwinkle shows.
Some people have told me that they even believe that it is the responsibility of the major news
media, the law enforcement and intelligence communities, and members of Congress to engage in a "soft
coup" against Trump – also known as a "constitutional coup" or
"deep state coup" – for the "good of the country."
The argument is that it sometimes falls to these Establishment institutions to "correct" a mistake
made by the American voters, in this case, the election of a largely unqualified individual as U.S.
president. It is even viewed by some anti-Trump activists as a responsibility of "responsible" journalists,
government officials and others to play this "guardian" role, to not simply "resist" Trump but to
remove him.
But The New York Times and The Washington Post, in particular, have made it clear that they view
Trump as a clear and present danger to the American system and thus have cast aside any pretense
of neutrality.
The Times justifies its open hostility to the President as part of its duty to protect "the truth";
the Post has adopted a slogan aimed at Trump, "Democracy Dies in Darkness." In other words, America's
two most influential political newspapers are effectively pushing for a "soft coup" under the guise
of defending "democracy" and "truth."
But the obvious problem with a "soft coup" is that America's democratic process, as imperfect
as it has been and still is, has held this diverse country together since 1788 with the notable exception
of the Civil War.
If Americans believe that the Washington elites are removing an elected president – even one as
buffoonish as Donald Trump – it could tear apart the fabric of national unity, which is already under
extraordinary stress from intense partisanship.
That means that the "soft coup" would have to be carried out under the guise of a serious investigation
into something grave enough to justify the President's removal, a removal that could be accomplished
by congressional impeachment, his forced resignation, or the application of Twenty-fifth Amendment,
which allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to judge a President incapable of continuing
in office (although that could require two-thirds votes by both houses of Congress if the President
fights the maneuver).
A Big Enough 'Scandal'
That is where Russia-gate comes in. The gauzy allegation that Trump and/or his advisers somehow
colluded with Russian intelligence officials to rig the 2016 election would probably clear the threshold
for an extreme action like removing a President.
And, given the determination of many key figures in the Establishment to get rid of Trump, it
should come as no surprise that no one seems to care that
no actual government-verified evidence has been revealed publicly to support any of the Russia-gate
allegations.
There's not even any public evidence from U.S. government agencies that Russia did "meddle" in
the 2016 election or – even if Russia did slip Democratic emails to WikiLeaks (which WikiLeaks denies)
– there has been zero evidence that the scheme resulted from collusion with Trump's campaign.
The FBI has been investigating these suspicions for at least nine months, even reportedly securing
a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Carter Page, an American whom Trump briefly
claimed as a foreign policy adviser when Trump was under fire for not having any foreign policy advisers.
One of Page's alleged offenses was that he gave a speech to an academic conference in Moscow in
July 2016 that was mildly critical of how the U.S. treated countries from the former Soviet Union.
He also once lived in Russia and met with a Russian diplomat who – apparently unbeknownst to Page
– had been identified by the U.S. government as a Russian intelligence officer.
It appears that is enough, in
these
days of our New McCarthyism , to get an American put under a powerful counter-intelligence investigation.
The FBI and the Department of Justice also reportedly are including as part of the Russia-gate
investigation Trump's stupid campaign joke calling on the Russians to help find the tens of thousands
of emails that Hillary Clinton erased from the home server that she used while Secretary of State.
On July 27, 2016, Trump said, apparently in jest, "I will tell you this, Russia: if you're listening,
I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."
The comment fit with Trump's puckish, provocative and often tasteless sense of humor, but was
seized on by Democrats as if it were a serious suggestion – as if anyone would use a press conference
to seriously urge something like that. But it now appears that the FBI is grabbing at any straw that
might support its investigation.
The (U.K.) Guardian
reported this week that "Senior DoJ officials have declined to release the documents [about Trump's
comment] on grounds that such disclosure could 'interfere with enforcement proceedings'. In a
filing to a federal court in Washington DC, the DoJ states that 'because of the existence of
an active, ongoing investigation, the FBI anticipates that it will withhold all records'.
"The statement suggests that Trump's provocative comment last July is being seen by the
FBI as relevant to its own
ongoing investigation."
The NYT's Accusations
On Friday, in the wake of Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey and the President's characterization
of Russia-gate as "a total hoax," The New York Times reprised what it called "The Trump-Russia Nexus"
in
a lead editorial trying to make the case of some fire behind the smoke.
Former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page.
Though the Times acknowledges that there are "many unknowns" in Russia-gate and the Times can't
seem to find any evidence of collusion, such as slipping a Russian data stick to WikiLeaks, the Times
nevertheless treats a host of Trump advisers and family members as traitors because they've had some
association with Russian officials, Russian businesses or Russian allies.
Regarding Carter Page, the Times wrote: "American officials believe that Mr. Page, a foreign policy
adviser, had contacts with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign. He also gave a pro-Russia
speech in Moscow in July 2016. Mr. Page was once employed by Merrill Lynch's Moscow office, where
he worked with Gazprom, a government-owned giant."
You might want to let some of those words sink in, especially the part about Page giving "a pro-Russia
speech in Moscow," which has been cited as one of the principal reasons for Page and his communications
being targeted under a FISA warrant.
I've actually read Page's speech and to call it "pro-Russia" is a wild exaggeration. It was a
largely academic treatise that faulted the West's post-Cold War treatment of the nations formed from
the old Soviet Union, saying the rush to a free-market system led to some negative consequences,
such as the spread of corruption.
But even if the speech were "pro-Russia," doesn't The New York Times respect the quaint American
notion of free speech? Apparently not. If your carefully crafted words can be twisted into something
called "pro-Russia," the Times seems to think it's okay to have the National Security Agency bug
your phones and read your emails.
The Ukraine Case
Another Times' target was veteran political adviser Paul Manafort, who is accused of working as
"a consultant for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine and for Ukraine's former president, Viktor
Yanukovych, who was backed by the Kremlin."
New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)
Left out of that Times formulation is the fact that the Ukrainian political party, which had strong
backing from ethnic Russian Ukrainians - not just Russia– competed in a democratic process and that
Yanukovych won an election that was recognized by international observers as free and fair.
Yanukovych was then ousted in February 2014 in a violent putsch that was backed by U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. The putsch, which was spearheaded
by right-wing nationalists and even neo-Nazis, touched off Ukraine's civil war and the secession
of Crimea, the key events in the escalation of today's New Cold War between NATO and Russia.
Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine's Azov battalion. (As filmed by a Norwegian
film crew and shown on German TV)
Though I'm no fan of U.S. political hired-guns selling their services in foreign elections, there
was nothing illegal or even unusual about Manafort advising a Ukrainian political party. What arguably
was much more offensive was the U.S. support for an unconstitutional coup that removed Yanukovych
even after he agreed to a European plan for early elections so he could be voted out of office peacefully.
But the Times, the Post and virtually the entire Western mainstream media sided with the Ukrainian
coup-makers and hailed Yanukovych's overthrow. That attitude has become such a groupthink that the
Times has
banished the thought that there was a coup .
Still, the larger political problem confronting the United States is that the neoconservatives
and their junior partners, the liberal interventionists, now control nearly all the levers of U.S.
foreign policy. That means they can essentially dictate how events around the world will be perceived
by most Americans.
The neocons and the liberal hawks also want to continue their open-ended wars in the Middle East
by arranging the
commitment of additional U.S. military forces to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria – and perhaps a
new confrontation with Iran.
Early in Obama's second term, it became clear to the neocons that Russia was becoming the chief
obstacles to their plans because President Barack Obama was working closely with President Vladimir
Putin on a variety of projects that undermined neocon hopes for more war.
Particularly, Putin helped Obama secure an agreement from Syria to surrender its chemical weapons
stockpiles in 2013 and to get Iran to accept tight constraints on its nuclear program in 2014. In
both cases, the neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks were lusting for war.
Immediately after the Syria chemical-weapons deal in September 2013, key U.S. neocons began focusing
on Ukraine as what National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman
called
"the biggest prize" and a first step toward unseating Putin in Moscow.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the Ukraine
coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders.
Gershman's grant-giving NED stepped up its operations inside Ukraine while Assistant Secretary
Nuland, the wife of arch-neocon Robert Kagan, began pushing for regime change in Kiev (along with
other neocons, including Sen. John McCain).
The Ukraine coup in 2014 drove a geopolitical wedge between Obama and Putin, since the Russian
president couldn't just stand by when a virulently anti-Russian regime took power violently in Ukraine,
which was the well-worn route for invasions into Russia and housed Russia's Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol
in Crimea.
Rather than defend the valuable cooperation provided by Putin, Obama went with the political flow
and joined in the Russia-bashing as key neocons raised their sights and
put Putin in the crosshairs .
An Unexpected Obstacle
For the neocons in 2016, there also was the excited expectation of a Hillary Clinton presidency
to give more momentum to the expensive New Cold War. But then Trump, who had argued for a new détente
with Russia, managed to eke out an Electoral College win.
Perhaps Trump could have diffused some of the hostility toward him but his narcissistic personality
stopped him from extending an olive branch to the tens of millions of Americans who opposed him.
He further demonstrated his political incompetence by wasting his first days in office making ridiculous
claims about the size of his inaugural crowds and disputing the fact that he had lost the popular
vote.
Widespread public disgust over his behavior contributed to the determination of many Americans
to "resist" his presidency at all junctures and at all costs.
Peter Sellers playing Dr. Strangelove as he struggles to control his right arm from making a Nazi
salute.
Russia-gate, the hazy suggestion that Putin put Trump in the White House and that Trump is a Putin
"puppet" (as Clinton claimed), became the principal weapon to use in destroying Trump's presidency.
However, besides the risks to U.S. stability that would come from an Establishment-driven "soft
coup," there is the additional danger of ratcheting up tensions so high with nuclear-armed Russia
that this extreme Russia-bashing takes on a life – or arguably many, many deaths – of its own.
Which is why America now might need a piercing satire of today's Russia-phobia or at least a revival
of the Cold War classic, "Dr. Strangelove," subtitled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the
Bomb."
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated
Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative,
either in
print here or as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ).
Cohen's main point is one that he has often
made in his weekly discussions with Batchelor: The United States is fully in a new and more
dangerous Cold War with Russia, while at the same time having vital national-security interests
that fully coincide with Russia's-first and foremost, the existential danger to both nations, and
to the world, represented by a new kind of international terrorist movements that are in search
of radioactive materials to make their bombings incalculably more lethal. A US-Russian
anti-terrorism alliance is the only hope of diminishing this looming threat. Each time such an
alliance has seemed politically within reach, beginning in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it
has been thwarted, not the least by the US political-media establishment's demonizing of Putin as
an unworthy partner for America. This is now happening again in the conflict between President
Trump's stated wish "to cooperate with Russia," beginning in Syria, and the purported scandal
known as "Russiagate." Given Oliver Stone's very up-close interviews with Russia's leader,
Americans can now decide for themselves-apart from the mainstream media-about Putin, about where
real threats lie, and about what should be their nation's priorities.
what is really interesting that there were only a couple of sane individuals (Jack
Paper , Wilfred_Blake,
PT come to mind ) and in the
whole discussion thread. The level of hysteria is really incredible and remind me of Stalinist Russia.
People are so brainwashed into new McCartyism, that Senator McCarthy is he would know, probably is really
proud and little bit envious at the results achieved. This collective Senator McCarthy that MSM now
represent proved to be more dramatically efficient
Notable quotes:
"... Threat. OK. Threat. That's a good word. We're in a moment when we need an American president and a Kremlin leader to act at the highest level of statesmanship. Whether they meet in summit or not is not of great importance, but we need intense negotiations to tamp down this new Cold War, particularly in Syria, but not only. Trump is being crippled by these charges, for which I can find no facts whatsoever. ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... You need Trump because he's in the White House. I didn't put him there. I didn't vote for him. Putin's in the Kremlin. I didn't put him in the Kremlin either, but we have what we have, and these guys must have a serious dialog about tamping down these cold wars, which means cooperating on various fronts. The obvious one-and they already are secretly, but it's getting torpedoed-is Syria. ..."
"... "This assault on Trump, for which as yet there are zero facts, has become a grave threat to American national security." ..."
"... So we come now with this so-called Russiagate. You know what that means. It's our shorthand, right? And Trump, even if he was the most wonderfully qualified president, he is utterly crippled in his ability to do diplomacy with the Kremlin. So let me give you the counterfactual example. ..."
"... Imagine that Kennedy had been accused of somehow being, they used to accuse him of being an agent of the Vatican, but let's say he had been accused widely of being an agent of the Kremlin. The only way he could have ended the Cuban Missile Crisis would have been to prove his loyalty by going to nuclear war with Russia. That's the situation we're in today. I mean Trump is not free to take wise advice and use whatever smarts he has to negotiate down this new and dangerous Cold War, so this assault on Trump, for which as yet there are zero facts, has become a grave threat to American national security. That's what I meant. That's what I believe. ..."
"... So we don't have any forensic evidence that there was a hack. There might have been. If there was a hack, we have no evidence it was the Russians, and we have an alternative explanation that it was actually a leak, that somebody inside did a Snowden, just stuck a thumb drive in and walked out with this stuff. We don't know. And when you don't know, you don't go to war. ..."
"... On the face of it, because it so deviated from American mainstream thinking about Putin, which was that he was a demon-that's what was startling about Trump, you're absolutely right. That he alone of all the candidates, even when we had multiple ones in the Democratic and Republican primaries, so far as I recall, he alone made this statement, I think I quote exactly, "Wouldn't it be great if we cooperated with Russia?" My answer is not only great but imperative. He also said, he also said he didn't know that Putin was actually a killer of personal enemies. That is correct. There is no evidence to support those allegations. He also said that Putin is a strong leader. That is also correct. ..."
"... I'm saying that the people with expertise and independence who examined, for example, the Litvinenko poisoning in London, find no evidence that Putin was involved. [Ed. note: A public inquiry in the United Kingdom found that Putin had "probably" approved his murder.] These are not Russians or Americans. These are just people who know about polonium. I'm saying that the newspaper in Moscow-and you're not quite correct that there's no free press in Moscow. There is a small, embattled free press in Moscow. I and my wife are very, very close, very close to the primary one, that's Novaya Gazeta ..."
"... Wait a minute. Let me just get to the point. That notion that he had her killed and put his signature on it is beyond ridiculous. Why? The next day he comes out, there's a press conference, and he's asked about her killing and the charges that the Kremlin was behind it, and he said something that might have been, what's the word? Not politic. Not diplomatic, but it was true. Essentially, I don't remember exactly what he said. Why would we want to kill her? Nobody in Russia read her. She had no influence in Russia. ..."
"... Why did you kill her? ..."
"... Why would I want to kill her? What was my motive? ..."
"... You know, Anna was a great journalist, we mourn her death, but let's be serious. She was not an influential force in Russia. ..."
"... My view is that this Cold War is even more dangerous. As we talk today, and this was not the case in the preceding Cold War, there are three new fronts that are fraught with hot war. You know them as well as I do. The NATO military build-up is going on in the Baltic regions, particularly in the three small Baltic countries, Poland, and if we include missile defense, Romania. That's right on Russia's border, and in Ukraine. You know that story. That's a proxy civil war right on Russia's border, and then of course in Syria, where American and Russian aircraft and Syrian aircraft are flying over the same airspace. ..."
"... And a nation, but a country that has long been deeply divided by history or by God. I mean, we're talking ethnicity, language, religion, political tilting. One part tilts toward Russia, one part tilts toward the West. Many millions of Ukrainians and Russians have intermarried over the years. This is a country that always had the potential to either break apart or launch into civil war. The events of 2014, for which both sides are highly culpable, initiated a civil war. This entourage around Putin, one segment of it was absolutely 1,000 percent convinced that NATO was headed via Kiev to Crimea. Had Crimea fallen in any way to NATO, any way, even in the shadow of NATO, Putin would have had to either go to war or resign. No Russian leader would have been able to sustain that kind of defeat. ..."
"... I don't want to go down in a subway and get blown up. It's going to happen. The Russians are excellent at this. They've got great intelligence. We're pretty good-not as good as the Russians. We need to combine it all. I see that this kind of alliance is good; we move on then to finding the solution in Ukraine and in the Baltic region. That's what Reagan did. Do you remember that Reagan going to Geneva, I think it was November 1985? Then two years later-I think this is right-he and Gorbachev for the first time in history, Isaac, abolished an entire category of nuclear weapons. This is what I want. This is probably what's not possible. ..."
"... I mean for Christ's sake. Have you watched Carter Page on television? ..."
"... Correction, May 30, 2017: This article originally misstated that the Moscow hotel mentioned in the dossier was the St. Regis. It was the Ritz-Carlton. ( Return .) ..."
"... I see little independent evidence that Putin wanted Trump specifically to be elected rather than wanting HRC not to be elected. There was no attempt at interfering with the GOP primary in Trump's favor. Any notion that Trump was groomed by Putin in some kind of long game defies reason. Simply put, no one could have had any confidence that Trump would win, ever. ..."
"... So if both of these assumptions hold, what the Democrats are creating, essentially, is a "stab in the back" myth on which they can focus their anger while muddying issues of accountability. Putin, I think it's clear, did not think that Trump had much chance of winning. To say he got "lucky" also doesn't describe the current reality, because this issue will probably taint US-Russian relations far into the future, and in ways no one could have foreseen. ..."
"... But then it's also possible that this will taint American politics into the distant future. The thing about stab-in-the-back myths is that they're emotional, it's extremely difficult for people to a discuss them. much less turn a contested narrative into one based upon mutual agreement. This will be true whether Trump gets impeached or serves two terms. ..."
"... "Europeans have an opinion of Americans as people who hysterically overreact to even the smallest of problems, real, or imagined" ..."
"... And what did exactly Putin did? Told everyone what they already knew about Hillary Clinton? American politics is all about negative ads and made up stuff about other candidates, how exactly was it news to anyone that Hillary Clinton was plotting to bring down Bernie Sanders? Did you guys never have an election before? ..."
"... Are you saying Putin finances Antifa? Because so far they have been the biggest force behind making Trump and Alt-Right look good. That would not be impossible, some corporations did that with environmental groups and they highlight targets for them that were either competitors or themselves but to paint those corporations as victims of unreasonable radicals (hence drowning any constructive criticism). ..."
"... His brilliant placement of several thousand Russian operatives in MI, WI and PA, who were able to bribe a significant number of voters to tip the electoral scale in Trump's favor, was simply brilliant. ..."
"... While this guy isn't saying Trump is right, in as nice a way possible he is saying the NeoCon/NeoLibs are as much to blame and the anti-Russian hysteria is overblown, out of control and incredibly short-sighted. ..."
"... I don't think the Russian interference amounted to a hill of beans in this election. If you think it did, you are delusional. Do you really think some person in the Midwest changed their vote because of what was in the Podesta emails? You're an idiot if you think that. ..."
"... And let's not forget our own interference. ..."
"... So why should Russia trust a country that reneged on its promises and expanded its way to Russia's border? ..."
Stephen F. Cohen has long been one of the leading scholars of Russia and the Soviet Union. He
wrote a biography of the Bolshevik revolutionary Nikolai Bukharin and is a contributing editor at
the Nation, which his wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, edits and publishes. In recent years, Cohen has
emerged as a more ideologically dexterous figure, ripping those he thinks are pursuing a "new Cold
War" with Russia and calling for President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to form
"an alliance against international terrorism." Cohen has gone so far as to describe the investigations
into the Trump campaign and Russia "the No. 1 threat to the United States today."
... ... ...
I heard you recently on Fox News. You said that the "assault" on President Trump "was the
No. 1 threat to the United States today." What did you mean by that?
Threat. OK. Threat.
That's a good word. We're in a moment when we need an American president and a Kremlin leader to
act at the highest level of statesmanship. Whether they meet in summit or not is not of great importance,
but we need intense negotiations to tamp down this new Cold War, particularly in Syria, but not only.
Trump is being crippled by these charges, for which I can find no facts whatsoever.
Wait, which charges are we talking about?
That he is somehow in the thrall or
complicity or control, under the influence of the Kremlin.
I think it would help if he would admit what his own intelligence agencies are telling him,
that Russia played some role in
No, I don't accept that. I don't accept that at all,
not for one minute.
People in the Trump administration admit this too.
Well they're not the brightest
lights.
And the president is?
No. You didn't ask me that. You asked me, you said, some
of the president's people. You're referring to that intel report of January, correct? The one that
was produced that said Putin directed the attack on the DNC?
I was referring to that and many news accounts that Russia was behind the hacking, yes.
The news accounts are of no value to us. I mean you and I both know ...
No value? None?
No. No value. Not on face value. Just because the New York
Times says that I don't know, Carter Page or [Paul] Manafort or [Michael] Flynn did something
wrong, I don't accept that. I need to see the evidence.
So then how do you know what's going on in, say, Ukraine? You're not reading "news accounts"
of it?
I read on the internet mainly. I can't read Ukrainian very well, but most of the
sources coming out of Ukraine are in Russian anyway.
So that media's OK, but the New York Times isn't?
No. It absolutely is
not OK. No, no, no, no, no, no.
OK, let's just go back to what you were saying about Trump being hamstrung.
You
need Trump because he's in the White House. I didn't put him there. I didn't vote for him. Putin's
in the Kremlin. I didn't put him in the Kremlin either, but we have what we have, and these guys
must have a serious dialog about tamping down these cold wars, which means cooperating on various
fronts. The obvious one-and they already are secretly, but it's getting torpedoed-is Syria.
So we come now with this so-called Russiagate. You know what that means. It's our shorthand,
right? And Trump, even if he was the most wonderfully qualified president, he is utterly crippled
in his ability to do diplomacy with the Kremlin. So let me give you the counterfactual example.
Imagine that Kennedy had been accused of somehow being, they used to accuse him of being an agent
of the Vatican, but let's say he had been accused widely of being an agent of the Kremlin. The only
way he could have ended the Cuban Missile Crisis would have been to prove his loyalty by going to
nuclear war with Russia. That's the situation we're in today. I mean Trump is not free to take wise
advice and use whatever smarts he has to negotiate down this new and dangerous Cold War, so this
assault on Trump, for which as yet there are zero facts, has become a grave threat to American national
security. That's what I meant. That's what I believe.
To use your Kennedy example, there
was no evidence that Kennedy was an agent of either the Vatican or the Kremlin-
No, but Isaac you're not old enough to remember, but during the campaign, because he was the first
Catholic, they all went on about he's an agent of the Vatican.
I know that. I'm old enough
to have read "news accounts" of it. Anyway, there was a hacking of the DNC and-
Wait actually no, Isaac stop. Stop. Now, I mean we don't know that for a fact.
That there
was a hacking of the DNC?
Yeah we do not know that for a fact.
What do we think happened?
Well ...
So you're really going to argue with me that the DNC wasn't hacked?
I'm saying I don't know that to be the case.
OK.
I will refer you to an alternative report and you can decide yourself.
Can we agree on
this much at least: that Trump said there was a hack, refused to say who he thought did it, encouraged
the hackers to keep doing it, at the same time that he was getting intelligence reports that it was
the Russians, and that he continued to talk very positively about Putin after he was told this?
You've given me too many facts to process, but if Trump said he knew it was a hack, he was not fully
informed. We just don't know it for a fact, Isaac.
So we don't have any forensic evidence that
there was a hack. There might have been. If there was a hack, we have no evidence it was the Russians,
and we have an alternative explanation that it was actually a leak, that somebody inside did a Snowden,
just stuck a thumb drive in and walked out with this stuff. We don't know. And when you don't know,
you don't go to war.
Let me try another tactic.
It's not me making this stuff up. It's not my opinion.
It's just out there. I read it, and I think it's credible.
Why do you think Trump, who has essentially, as far as I can tell, no clue about what's going
on anywhere and can't keep his mind on some issue for 10 minutes, has had in his head consistently
time and again that we must make peace with Putin, we must come together with Putin, Putin's a good
guy? What do you make of that?
Well you have given me a kind of primitive version of what
Trump said. First of all, I don't share the view that Trump's an idiot. Trump's a clever, cunning,
smart man, or he wouldn't have become Donald Trump. Whether that's applicable to the presidency is
a different question, but to treat him as a buffoon and an idiot is just silly.
On the face of it, because it so deviated from American mainstream thinking about Putin, which was
that he was a demon-that's what was startling about Trump, you're absolutely right. That he alone
of all the candidates, even when we had multiple ones in the Democratic and Republican primaries,
so far as I recall, he alone made this statement, I think I quote exactly, "Wouldn't it be great
if we cooperated with Russia?" My answer is not only great but imperative. He also said, he also
said he didn't know that Putin was actually a killer of personal enemies. That is correct. There
is no evidence to support those allegations. He also said that Putin is a strong leader. That is
also correct.
You say there's no evidence Putin was a killer. Don't you think if Russia
had a more robust free press and was more of a liberal democracy, evidence might actually emerge?
There's no evidence. I know there are allegations, but I have looked into the three or four most
famous cases. I can't look at them all because there's about 30 now, some of them withdrawn.
So you're saying these Putin enemies who keep turning up dead in Moscow, and then those deaths
are not properly investigated, there's no evidence that Putin was behind them? That's your argument?
Not behind, that's correct. He was not behind. He didn't order the killings, yes.
We know
that because there's been a fair investigation and there's a free press to report on that? That's
what you are saying?
I'm saying that the people with expertise and independence who examined, for example, the Litvinenko
poisoning in London, find no evidence
that Putin was involved. [Ed. note: A public inquiry in the United Kingdom found that Putin had "probably"
approved his murder.] These are not Russians or Americans. These are just people who know about polonium.
I'm saying that the newspaper in Moscow-and you're not quite correct that there's no free press in
Moscow. There is a small, embattled free press in Moscow. I and my wife are very, very close, very
close to the primary one, that's Novaya Gazeta. That's the newspaper that employed Anna
Politkovskaya and several other journalists that were assassinated.
Who killed her?
I mean, I don't know who killed her. They've arrested the gunman, but they never get to the contract-giver.
It almost certainly came out of Chechnya, almost certainly.
And who runs Chechnya?
You're headed now into a complicated turf.
You know who runs Chechnya, and you know who
his patron is.
Let me put it to you like this: On the chart of federal authority, Ramzan Kadyrov runs Chechnya,
and Putin could remove him.
OK, well, there you go.
No, that's the beginning of the discussion. What would happen in Chechnya if Putin removed Kadyrov?
He either leaves Kadyrov in power and tries to rein him in, or the Russian army tries again to occupy
Chechnya, which was a catastrophe two times under Yeltsin. You can't do it. What choice does Putin
have at the moment?
Didn't Putin speak disparagingly after Anna's death and say she had
"minimal influence"?
Wait a minute. Let me just get to the point. That notion that he had her killed and put his signature
on it is beyond ridiculous. Why? The next day he comes out, there's a press conference, and he's
asked about her killing and the charges that the Kremlin was behind it, and he said something that
might have been, what's the word? Not politic. Not diplomatic, but it was true. Essentially, I don't
remember exactly what he said. Why would we want to kill her? Nobody in Russia read her. She
had no influence in Russia. What he said was about 95 percent true. Very few people except the
inner political class knew who Anna Politkovskaya was, just like the great majority of Americans
don't know who Stephen Cohen and Isaac Chotiner are. We are known to the people who care about the
things we do.
What he was saying was, when people said, Why did you kill her? He said,
Why would I want to kill her? What was my motive? He shouldn't have said it, I guess. He
should have said, You know, Anna was a great journalist, we mourn her death, but let's be serious.
She was not an influential force in Russia. That would have been better but he just, he's a
blunt sort of guy. He said what he said.
Let's turn to Putin and America. Why do you think we have entered a new Cold War?
My view is that this Cold War is even more dangerous. As we talk today, and this was not the case
in the preceding Cold War, there are three new fronts that are fraught with hot war. You know them
as well as I do. The NATO military build-up is going on in the Baltic regions, particularly in the
three small Baltic countries, Poland, and if we include missile defense, Romania. That's right on
Russia's border, and in Ukraine. You know that story. That's a proxy civil war right on Russia's
border, and then of course in Syria, where American and Russian aircraft and Syrian aircraft are
flying over the same airspace.
And there is the utter demonization of Putin in this country. It is just beyond anything that the
American political elite ever said about Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and the rest. If you demonize the
other side, it makes negotiating harder.
You just said that Ukraine is a civil war. What
was the Russian annexation of Crimea?
There's a long history, but it is a civil war in the sense that Ukraine is a country.
We
agree on that.
And a nation, but a country that has long been deeply divided by history or by God. I mean, we're
talking ethnicity, language, religion, political tilting. One part tilts toward Russia, one part
tilts toward the West. Many millions of Ukrainians and Russians have intermarried over the years.
This is a country that always had the potential to either break apart or launch into civil war. The
events of 2014, for which both sides are highly culpable, initiated a civil war. This entourage around
Putin, one segment of it was absolutely 1,000 percent convinced that NATO was headed via Kiev to
Crimea. Had Crimea fallen in any way to NATO, any way, even in the shadow of NATO, Putin would have
had to either go to war or resign. No Russian leader would have been able to sustain that kind of
defeat.
Gallup did a
poll afterward that 80-some percent of Crimeans wanted to be reunited with Russia.
You're explaining the way Putin and his advisers were thinking, which I agree is important
context, but that doesn't give you the right to invade a sovereign country regardless of what a Gallup
poll may say.
Isaac, come on. Great powers preach international law, and they do what
they think they must.
If a province in any country votes for independence certainly the Crimeans did. There's just no
question that that was a legitimate referendum. People get a little confused about what the choice
was.
But this referendum was after the Russians had gone in.
No, no, no. Well ... wait, wait, wait, wait. Russia was already there by treaty. There were approximately
23,000 Russian soldiers at the naval base in Crimea, at Sevastopol. It was an invasion only in the
sense that they left the base on Crimea.
[The idea of Crimea being part of Russia] was alive in
Russia for years and years. Putin was never interested in it. ... That was a sleeping dog, which
should not have been awakened, but the events of 2014 awakened it. Once that happened, it was close
to inevitable that Russia would proceed with the annexation of Crimea, which was a part of Russia
for 300 years.
What's now Pakistan was part of India for a long time. That doesn't mean India can go in
and take Lahore tomorrow.
You know if we follow your logic, we're going to end up in Texas.
We got to stay in modern history where leaders have a memory.
You and I are going to end up in Texas?
Well, you know what I mean. Texas wasn't
always ours. The point is how far back in history do we go?
That's my point. Anyway, what did you mean when you said leakers here had become a fourth
branch of government, and one intent on undermining Trump?
When I was asked what's driving
the leaking, because you would agree that virtually every day almost there's a new news story that's
based on a leak. You have to go back to when it began, which was the summer of 2016. The Clinton
campaign was deeply involved. You know the story of this dossier right?
Yes.
The one BuzzFeed published?
I do.
It's the one that has urinating in the Ritz-Carlton hotel.*
I was trying to get you to keep going without saying that, but there you go.
Well,
take it out. But there's a serious point here. CNN, where they broadcast 1,000 hours about this dossier
as though it's authentic, says it won't repeat that part because it's too salacious. No, the reason
is if you broadcast that part, people would realize the whole thing is bullshit.
I don't want to go down in a subway and get blown up. It's going to happen. The Russians are excellent
at this. They've got great intelligence. We're pretty good-not as good as the Russians. We need to
combine it all. I see that this kind of alliance is good; we move on then to finding the solution
in Ukraine and in the Baltic region. That's what Reagan did. Do you remember that Reagan going to
Geneva, I think it was November 1985? Then two years later-I think this is right-he and Gorbachev
for the first time in history, Isaac, abolished an entire category of nuclear weapons. This is what
I want. This is probably what's not possible.
Steve, I really appreciate you taking the
time to talk with me. I hope when this is printed that you will believe it is real news and not fake
news.
No, no, no. Let me make a distinction. Opinion, what you and I think, is real news. It's our news.
It's what we think. But when I read in the newspaper that Carter Page was somehow a Russian agent,
I had plenty of reasons to know that that is really a super bogus report.
"... The comments under that piece are depressing. US liberals are such dumb assholes, disturbing how they're totally buying the anti-Russian narrative without any thought for the possible consequences. ..."
"... Cohen is an intelligent, accurate commentator and historian on Russian matters. The lamestream media, including Slate as indicated by the interviewer and other articles, seem to have it in for Russia in the manner of fascist propaganda. Of course, the fact Russia has a large store of nukes, makes the prevailing propaganda meme not only criminal but nihilistically stupid. ..."
The comments under that piece are depressing. US liberals are such dumb assholes, disturbing
how they're totally buying the anti-Russian narrative without any thought for the possible consequences.
Cohen is an intelligent, accurate commentator and historian on Russian matters. The lamestream
media, including Slate as indicated by the interviewer and other articles, seem to have it in
for Russia in the manner of fascist propaganda. Of course, the fact Russia has a large store of
nukes, makes the prevailing propaganda meme not only criminal but nihilistically stupid.
@German_reader
They robotically follow the party propaganda line like nihilist fascist lemmings almost like
those following the prevailing view during the tausendjaehrige.
Breathtaking how WITHIN DAYS after November 8, 2016 all the former Russia-loving Left-Totalitarians
did a smooth 180 and now spout anti-Russian rhetoric that would have seemed overwrought to Cold
Warriors back in the 1950s.
It is easy for them. Till June 22, 1941 all communist in America were isolationists and supported
America First, Charles Lindbergh. They were writing pacifist pamphlets and composed anti-war songs,
etc. And within one day they switched 180. Took them some effort to cover up traces of their isolationist
and pacifist episode.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/nyt-when-communism-inspired-americans/#comment-1855425
"Professor Zinn, in May of 1941 your friend, Pete Seeger, produced an album called Songs for
John Doe which was a collection of blue collar songs that included one called The Ballad of
October 16th. [At the time, Pete Seeger had formed his first commercial band called the Almanac
Singers.] That song demonstrated yours and Pete's pacifist philosophy by excoriating Franklin
and Eleanor Roosevelt for urging United States entry into World War II to fight Hitler. Shortly
after the album's release, you and Pete were desperately trying to retrieve all the copies
to take them out of circulation. Exactly what happened between May and June of 1941 to turn
you from devoted anti-war activists into sabre-rattling patriots, resulting in your enlisting
in the Army Air Force as a bombardier?"
@Eagle
Eye The Clintonistas and Berniacs have shamelessly united to attack Trump, cynically using
the fakest of fake news. This weekend they're marching "for Truth." If that were true, why aren't
they marching to investigate Hillary and who killed Seth Rich?
But no. On June 3 they're out to get Trump. "Demonstrations to call for urgent investigations into Russian interference in the US election
and ties to Donald Trump, his administration and his associates." https://www.marchfortruth.info/
Meanwhile, barely a peep about illegal, unconstitutional attacks on Syria, or huge sale of
arms to Saudis that will likely end up with terrorists. A better investigation would be Who Killed
Seth Rich. Ask for one here:
On July 10, 2016, Seth Rich was shot twice in the early morning as he walked back to his
house in Washington D.C. Immediately after the crime, the death was called an armed robbery
but none of Seth Rich's belongings were taken from him.
Rod Wheeler, a private investigator hired by the family, said that there was evidence Seth
Rich had contacted WikiLeaks and that law enforcement were covering this up. MSM is not covering
this murder, instead pushing it to the side, so it is now up to us.
The facts do not add up, law enforcement stopped covering the crime, and now it is time
for us to fight for justice. Seth Rich deserves this.
14.05.2017 International Cyber Attack: Roots Traced to US National Security Agency
Over 45,000 ransomware attacks have been tracked in large-scale attacks across Europe and Asia
- particularly Russia and China - as well as attacks in the US and South America.
Jan 2, 2017 BOOM! CNN Caught Using Video Game Image In Fake Russian Hacking Story
It looks like CNN Has tried to pull the wool over our eyes once again. This time, they used
a screenshot from the Fallout 4 Video game to paint the picture of Russian Hacking. To bad that's
not what a real hacking screen looks like. And an image you will only find in the video game!
Is it just me, or is this an exceptionally awful interview?
Whether you agree with Cohen or not (IMHO he certainly says some silly things there), the interviewer
is demagogical and biased in the extreme. I suppose that's sort of the norm for them?
By the way, is there any evidence of 1) Putin ordering someone killed or 2) The Collusion out
there yet? If read uncritically, the interview gives the impression that of course there is, all
those smart and good people say so. If read critically one notices that if there's any evidence
of anything, it's never mentioned. But if only Russia had a more liberal media environment, then
surely
Stephen F. Cohen is one of the few honest and patriotic Jews living in America who's capably
of telling the unvarnished truth. I regularly seek out his writings for an objective appraisal
of U.S. – Russia relations.
Unfortunately, there are ten Victoria Nuland's, William Kristol's and Chuck U. Schumer's to
every one Stephen F. Cohen.
Last week I had the honor of interviewing Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies
and Politics at NYU and Princeton University, where for many years he was director of its Russian
Studies program. Professor Cohen, a long-time friend of Mikhail Gorbachev, is one of the most important
Russia scholars in the world and a member of the founding board of directors of the
American Committee for East-West Accord
, a pro-detente organization that seeks rethinking and public discussion of U.S. policy toward Russia.
Despite his impressive credentials and intimate knowledge of Russia and its history, you will
rarely hear Cohen's voice in the mainstream press. And it is not for a lack of trying; his views,
and those of others like him, are simply shut out of the media, which, along with almost every U.S.
politician, has decided to vilify Russian and Putin, irrationally equating Putin with such tyrants
as Adolf Hitler. As Cohen explains:
Even Henry Kissinger - I think it was in March 2014 in the Washington Post - wrote
this line: "The demonization of Putin is not a policy. It's an alibi for not having a policy."
And then I wrote in reply to that: That's right, but it's much worse than that, because it's also
that the demonization of Putin is an obstacle to thinking rationally, having a rational discourse
or debate about American national security. And it's not just this catastrophe in Ukraine and
the new Cold War; it's from there to Syria to Afghanistan, to the proliferation of nuclear weapons,
to fighting global terrorism. The demonization of Putin excludes a partner in the Kremlin that
the U.S. needs, no matter who sits there.
And Cohen reminds us that, quite contrary to the common, manufactured perception in this country,
we have a very willing and capable potential partner in Moscow right now. As Cohen explains, "Bill
Clinton said this not too long ago: To the extent that he knew and dealt with Putin directly, he
never knew him to say anything that he, Putin, didn't mean, or ever to go back on his word or break
a promise he made to Clinton."
What's more, as Cohen reminds us, when the 9/11 attacks happened, Putin was the very first international
leader to offer help to President Bush:
Putin called George Bush after 9/11 and said, "George, we're with you, whatever we can do,"
and in fact did more to help the Americans fight a land war in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban
from Kabul. ... Russia still had a lot of assets in Afghanistan, including a fighting force called
the Northern Alliance. It had probably better intelligence in and about Afghanistan than any country,
and it had air-route transport for American forces to fight in Afghanistan. He gave all this -
Putin gave all this - to the Bush administration. Putin's Kremlin, not a member of NATO, did more
to help the American land war and save American lives, therefore, in Afghanistan, than any NATO
country.
However, as Cohen explains, Bush strangely repaid Putin by (1) unilaterally withdrawing from the
anti-ballistic (ABM) treaty, the "bedrock" of Russia's national security, and (2) launching the second
wave of NATO expansion toward Russia.
And, as Cohen points out, this was not the only case in which the U.S. quite brazenly betrayed
Russia in recent decades. Thus he notes that Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama have all violated
the very clear agreement that, in return for Gorbachev's allowing the reunification of Germany, the
U.S. would not move NATO one inch further east. In addition, the U.S. undermined then-President Medvedev
(who we claim to prefer to Putin) by unseating Gaddafi in Libya - with disastrous consequences -
despite our promise to Russia that we would do no such thing if Russia agreed to the Security Council
resolution approving the no-fly zone over Libya.
All of this history must be considered when we view the current crisis in Ukraine, which, Cohen
warns, is quickly leading to a hot war with Russia. As Cohen relates:
If you took even the short time frame of the Ukrainian crisis and you began it in November
2013, when the then-elected president of Ukraine, Yanukovych, didn't actually refuse to sign the
European Union's offer of a partnership with Europe. He asked for time to think about it. That
brought the protesters in the streets. That led to the illegal overthrow of Yanukovych, which,
by the way, Poroshenko, the current president, strangely now admits was illegal. ...
Then comes Putin's annexation or reunification of Crimea, as Russians call it. Then already
evolving now in Eastern Ukraine are protests against what's happening in Kiev, because Eastern
Ukraine was the electoral base of Yanukovych. Yanukovych was its president in a fundamental way.
Then comes the proxy war, with Russia helping the rebel fighters in Eastern Ukraine and the United
States and NATO helping the military forces of Kiev. ...
And so it went, on and on. Now, if you back up and ask who began the aggression, it's my argument
- for which I'm called a "Putin apologist," which I am not - ... but the reality is that Putin
has been mostly reactive. Let me say that again: reactive. If we had the time, I could explain
to you why the reportedly benign European Union offer to Kiev in 2013 was not benign at all. No
Ukrainian who wanted to survive could have accepted that. And by the way, it had clauses buried
below that would've obliged Kiev to adhere to NATO military security policy. ...
Ukraine had been on Washington's agenda for a very, very long time; it is a matter of public
record. It was to that that Putin reacted. It was to the fear that the new government in Kiev,
which overthrew the elected government, had NATO backing and its next move would be toward Crimea
and the Russian naval base there. ... But he was reacting, and as Kiev began an all-out war against
the East, calling it the "anti-terrorist operation," with Washington's blessing. ...
This was clearly meant to be a war of destruction. ... Meanwhile, NATO began escalating its
military presence. In each of these stages, a very close examination will show, as I'm sure historians
will when they look back, that Putin has been primarily reactive. Now maybe his reactions have
been wrong-headed. Maybe they've been too aggressive. That's something that could be discussed.
...
But this notion that this is all Putin's aggression, or Russia's aggression, is, if not 100-percent
false, let us say, for the sake of being balanced and ecumenical, it's 50-percent false. And if
Washington would admit that its narrative is 50-percent false, which means Russia's narrative
is 50-percent correct, that's where negotiations begin and succeed.
I can only hope that the policy makers in this country will hear the voices of people like Professor
Cohen and enter into rational negotiations with Russia in order that we may be spared what is shaping
up to be a disastrous war in Europe.
In the first half, Professor of Russian Studies and History Emeritus at NYU,
Stephen F. Cohen , reacted
to Vladimir Putin's decision to get involved in the Syrian conflict and commence air strikes against
ISIS forces.
In the first half, Stephen
F. Cohen , Professor of Russian Studies and History Emeritus at NYU, addressed the latest military
and political developments in Russia, the threat of nuclear alerts, and the role of Putin in the
ongoing geopolitical chess game.
In the first half, a leading scholar of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, media commentator, and
the author of several widely acclaimed books,
Stephen F. Cohen discussed
the current dynamics of the U.S. relationship with Russia.
"... The professor noted that some analysts are convinced that Vladimir Putin is about to sell out
Donbass, eastern Ukraine, in return for Syria. According to Cohen, it is naïve to believe that
Moscow would give up ethnic Russians suffering from Kiev's hostilities in return for protecting
Assad ..."
"... [Ukrainian authorities are worried] that Washington may kind of forget Ukraine or lessen
its commitment to the Kiev government. So, I would not be surprised if Kiev stages a
provocation to inflame the crisis which is at a very low level at the moment in Ukraine, ..."
"... if Washington continues to indulge the neocons' plan
to arm Ukraine and encourage Kiev's warmongering against Russia, the United States will finally
face an equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Eastern Europe. ..."
"My hope is that [US President] Obama and [Russian President] Putin will rise above themselves
and form a substantial coalition in Iraq and in Syria. But let's be realistic… There are enormous
obstacles," Professor Cohen noted in an interview with US progressive political commentator
Thomas Carl "Thom" Hartmann.
The professor noted that some analysts are convinced that Vladimir Putin is about to sell out
Donbass, eastern Ukraine, in return for Syria. According to Cohen, it is naïve to believe that
Moscow would give up ethnic Russians suffering from Kiev's hostilities in return for protecting
Assad. "That won't happen," the professor underscored.
... ... ...
"It [the Ukrainian crisis] could flare up at any moment in a way that could disrupt any
fragile agreement between Putin and Obama," the professor stressed.
According to Cohen, the US-backed regime in Kiev is sweating bullets about the possibility of
close cooperation between Moscow and Washington in the Middle East.
"[Ukrainian authorities are worried] that Washington may kind of forget Ukraine or lessen
its commitment to the Kiev government. So, I would not be surprised if Kiev stages a
provocation to inflame the crisis which is at a very low level at the moment in Ukraine,"
Cohen warned.
Meanwhile, the grim specter of World War III is prowling across Europe and the Middle East.
Professor Cohen has repeatedly stressed that if Washington continues to indulge the neocons' plan
to arm Ukraine and encourage Kiev's warmongering against Russia, the United States will finally
face an equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Eastern Europe.
"Architects of American policy towards Russia and Ukraine are destroying American national security": Stephen F. Cohen on the
truths U.S. media and politicians hide
Myths of American nationalism busted as our interview with noted scholar concludes
If there is a lesson in Stephen F. Cohen's professional fortunes over the past year, it is the peril of advancing a dispassionate
reading of our great country's doings abroad. Cohen's many pieces in The Nation on the Ukraine crisis and the consequent collapse
of U.S.-Russia relations now leave him in something close to a state of siege. "My problem with this begins with the fact that… I
don't have a vested interest in one of the 'isms,' or ideologies," Cohen says in this, the second part of a long interview conducted
last month.
The problem lies with the ideologues infesting the waters wherein Cohen swims. Terminally poisoned by Cold War consciousness,
they cannot abide disinterested thought. Cohen has been mostly scholar, partly journalist, since the 1970s. His "Sovieticus" column,
launched in The Nation in the 1980s, put a magazine traditionally tilted toward domestic issues among the few American publications
providing consistent analysis of Russian affairs. At this point, Cohen's Nation essays are the bedrock scholarly work to which those
(few) writing against the orthodoxy turn.
The
first half of our exchange, last week on Salon, began with events during the past year and advanced toward the post-Soviet origins
of the current crisis. In part two, Cohen completes his analysis of Vladimir Putin's inheritance and explains how he came to focus
his thinking on "lost alternatives"-outcomes that could have been but were not. Most surprising to me was the real but foregone prospect
of reforming the Soviet system such that the suffering that ensued since its demise could have been averted.
Salon: Putin inherited a shambles, then-as he would say, "a catastrophe."
Stephen F. Cohen: As Russia's leader, Putin has changed over the years, especially in foreign policy but also at home.
His first impulse was toward more free-market reforms, anti-progressive taxes. He enacted a 13 percent flat tax-Steve Forbes would've
been ecstatic, right? He offers [George W.] Bush what Clinton never really offered Yeltsin: a full partnership. And what does he
do? On September 11, 2001, he called George and said, Whatever you want, we're with you. Bush says, Well, I think we're
going to have to go to war in Afghanistan. And Putin said, I can help you. We've got major resources and assets in Afghanistan.
I even have an army over there called the Northern Alliance. I'll give it to you! You want overflight? It's all yours!
How many American lives did Putin save during our land war in Afghanistan? And do you know what a political price he paid in Russia
for that? Because his security people were completely against it.
They were? Please explain.
Oh, yeah. You think they minded seeing America being brought to its knees? They'd been invaded so often; let America get a taste
of it! But Putin assumes he's achieved what Yeltsin couldn't and that this benefits the Russian state. He has a real strategic partnership
with America. Now, remember, he's already worried about his radical Islamic problem because Russia has nearly 20 million
Muslim citizens of its own. Russia sits in the East and in the West; it's on the front lines.
What does Bush give him in return? He expands NATO again and he unilaterally withdraws the United States from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, the bedrock of Russia's nuclear security- it's a complete betrayal. Is that how you repay somebody who's helped you
save the lives of your citizens? This is where the word "betrayal" begins to enter into the discourse.
It's an important word for Putin.
It's not only Putin; [Dmitry] Medvedev uses it, too, when he becomes president [in 2008]. America has broken its word, it's betrayed
us, it's deceived us, and we no longer take America at its word- well, they never should've in the first fucking place, just as Gorbachev
should have got the promise not to expand NATO in writing. We'd have done it anyway, but at least they would have had a talking point.
This trust, this naive trust on the part of Russians, that there's something about American presidents that makes them honorable-it
suggests they need a crash course in something. This was betrayal for Putin, and for the entire Russian political class, and Putin
paid a price.
I've heard him called, among right-wing Russian intellectuals, an appeaser of the West. Soft. You can hear this today: Mariupol?
Odessa? Should've taken them a year ago; they belong to us. What's he thinking? Why is he discussing it? [Mariupol and Odessa
are two contested cities in the southeastern region of Ukraine.]
So Putin sets his course, and then comes this famous speech he gives in 2007 in Munich, with McCain sitting in the front row.
Putin says just what I told you. He says, Look, we want to be your partner; this is what we've wanted to be since Gorbachev.
We believe in the common European home. But every time we turn to you or we negotiate with you or we think we have an agreement with
you, you act like a hegemon and everybody has to do exactly what you say if they want to to be on your side.
Putin has come to tell them that America is risking a new Cold War with more than a decade of bad behavior towards post-Soviet
Russia. John McCain interprets this as the declaration of a new Cold War.
But the demonization of Putin came earlier, before the Munich speech, when he began to drive a few favorite American
oligarchs [oil companies] out of the country. I looked it up: No major oil-producing country permits majority foreign ownership of
its oil. So there's a long a long history of how Putin goes from a democrat for sure in the U.S. media and an aspiring partner of
America to becoming the Hitler of today, as Hillary Clinton put it. You can see what a disease it's become, this Putin-phobia….
RT just aired a documentary in which Putin explains exactly when and why he decided to move as he did in Crimea. It's
striking: The deliberations began the night President Yanukovych was ousted in the American-supported coup last year. Can you talk
about Putin's thinking on the Crimea question, leading to the annexation?
Putin, in my judgment, did some wrong-headed things. We now know much more about Crimea, but even given what he has said, there
was an argument. It wasn't quite as clear-cut as he says it was. There was a debate with two sides.
One side said, "Take Crimea now or fight NATO there later." The other said, "Let the referendum [on association with Russia, held
in March 2014] go forward and they're going to vote 80-plus percent to join Russia. We don't have to act on it; they've just made
a request and we'll say what we think about it. Meanwhile, we see what happens in Kiev." The Kremlin had done polling in Crimea.
And it's the best bargaining chip Putin will have. He'll have Crimea wanting to join Russia and he can say to Washington, Well,
you would like the Crimea to remain in Ukraine? Here's what I'd like in return: an eternal ban on NATO membership and federalization
of the Ukrainian constitution, because I have to give my Crimean brethren something.
But those arguing that Crimea was the biggest bargaining chip Putin was ever going to have lost. The other side prevailed.
Now, Putin took all the credit, but that's not what really happened. They were all dependent on intelligence coming out of Kiev
and Crimea and Donbass. You see now, if you watch that film, what a turning point the overthrow of Yanukovych was. Remember, the
European foreign ministers-Polish, German, and French-had brokered an agreement saying that Yanukovych would form a coalition government
and stay in power until December, and that was burned in the street. I'll never forget the massive Klitschko [Vitali Klitschko, a
prizefighter-turned-political oppositionist, currently Kiev's mayor] standing on a platform at Maidan, all 6' 8" of him, announcing
this great triumph of negotiation, and some smaller guy whipping away the microphone and saying, Go fuck yourself. This thing
is going to burn in the streets. The next day it did. That night you saw what an undefeated heavyweight champion looks like
when he's terror-stricken.
This is the turning point, and "It's all due to Putin," but it's all due to Putin because demonization has become the pivot of
the analysis.
What do we do from here to resolve the Ukraine question? You used the word "hope" when talking about the February cease-fire,
Minsk II-"the last, best hope." It tripped me up. Hope's a virtue, but it can also be very cruel.
Anyone of any sense and good will knows that it [the solution] lies in the kind of home rule they negotiated in the U.K.-and don't
call it a federated Ukraine if that upsets Kiev. As the constitution stands, the governors of all the Ukrainian provinces are appointed
by Kiev. You can't have that in eastern Ukraine. Probably can't even have that in Western and Central Ukraine anymore. Ukraine is
fragmenting.
I want to turn this around: what is your view of America's strategic goal? I ask in the context of your analysis, in "Failed
Crusade," of "transitionology," as you term the paradigm wherein Russia was supposed to transition into a free-market paradise. As
the book makes clear, it amounted to the elevation and protection of crooks who asset-stripped most of an entire nation. Now we don't
hear much about Russia's "transition." What is Washington's ambition now?
I think the Ukranian crisis is the greatest blow to American national security- even greater than the Iraq war in its long-term
implications- for a simple reason: The road to American national security still runs through Moscow. There is not a single major
regional or issue-related national security problem we can solve without the full cooperation of whoever sits in the Kremlin, period,
end of story.
Name your poison: We're talking the Middle East, we're talking Afghanistan, we're talking energy, we're talking climate, we're
talking nuclear proliferation, terrorism, shooting airplanes out of the sky, we're talking about the two terrorist brothers in Boston.
Look: I mean American national security of the kind I care about-that makes my kids and grandkids and myself safe-in an era that's
much more dangerous than the Cold War because there's less structure, more nonstate players, and more loose nuclear know-how and
materials…. Security can only be partial, but that partial security depends on a full-scale American-Russian cooperation, period.
We are losing Russia for American national security in Ukraine as we talk, and even if it were to end tomorrow Russia will never,
for at least a generation, be as willing to cooperate with Washington on security matters as it was before this crisis began.
Therefore, the architects of the American policy towards Russia and Ukraine are destroying American national security-and therefore
I am the patriot and they are the saboteurs of American security. That's the whole story, and any sensible person who doesn't suffer
from Putin-phobia can see it plainly.
Is it too strong to say that the point is to destabilize Moscow?
What would that mean? What would it mean to destabilize the country that may have more weapons of mass destruction than does the
U.S.?
Is that indeed the ambition?
I don't think there's any one ambition. I come back to the view that you've got various perspectives in discussion behind closed
doors. I guess Mearsheimer [John Mearsheimer, the noted University of Chicago scholar] is right in the sense of saying that there's
a faction in Washington that is behaving exactly as a great power would behave and trying to maximize its security, but it doesn't
understand that that's what other great powers do, too. That's its failure. Gorbachev and Reagan, though it wasn't originally their
idea, probably agreed on the single most important thing: Security had to be mutual. That was their agreement and they built everything
on that. We have a military build-up you're going to perceive as a threat and build up, and I will perceive your build-up as a threat…
and that's the dynamic of permanent and conventional build-up, a permanent arms race. And that's why Gorbachev and Reagan reasoned,
We're on the edge of the abyss. That's why we are going to declare the Cold War over, which they did.
That concept of mutual security doesn't mean only signing contracts: It means don't undertake something you think is in your security
but is going to be perceived as threatening, because it won't prove to be in your interest. Missile defense is the classic example:
We never should have undertaken any missile defense program that wasn't in cooperation with Russia, but, instead, we undertook it
as an anti-Russian operation. They knew it and we knew it and scientists at MIT knew it, but nobody cared because some group believed
that you've got to keep Russia down.
The truth is, not everything depends on the president of the United States. Not everything, but an awful lot does, and when it
comes to international affairs we haven't really had a president who acted as an actual statesman in regard to Russia since Reagan
in 1985-88. Clinton certainly didn't; his Russia policy was clownish and ultimately detrimental to U.S. national security interests.
Bush's was reckless and lost one opportunity after another, and Obama's is either uninformed or completely out to lunch. We have
not had a statesman in the White House when it comes to Russia since Reagan, and I am utterly, totally, 1000 percent convinced that
before November 2013, when we tried to impose an ultimatum on Yanukovych-and even right now, today-that a statesman in the White
House could end this in 48 hours with Putin. What Putin wants in the Ukraine crisis is what we ought to want; that's the reality.
Interesting.
What does Putin want? He's said the same thing and he's never varied: He wants a stable, territorial Ukraine-Crimea excepted-and
he knows that's possible only if Ukraine is free to trade with the West and with Russia but is never a member of NATO. However, somebody's
got to rebuild Ukraine, and he's not going to take that burden on himself, but he will help finance it through discounted energy
prices. It could all be done tomorrow if we had a statesman in the White House. Tomorrow! Nobody else has to die.
I think Chancellor Merkel understands this, too.
I think she's come to, but how strong she is and whether Washington will cut her legs out from under her as they're trying to
do now… [Shortly before this interview Senator McCain delivered a blunt attack on Merkel at a security conference in Munich for opposing
the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine. The Arizona Republican was similarly critical when Merkel began to explore a diplomatic
solution in Ukraine in spring 2013.]
They have very little respect for her, which is wrong.
What Lindsay Graham and McCain did in Germany, in her own country, on German national television, to her face-and the fact that
she's a woman didn't help, either. The way they spoke to her, I can't think of a precedent for that.
Parts of your work are very moving, and that's not a word a lot of scholarship prompts. The enormous value the Soviet
Union accreted-most Americans know nothing of this; with the media's encouragement, we're completely ignorant of this. There's nothing
encouraging us to understand that the hundreds of billions of misappropriated assets during the 1990s was essentially the misappropriation
of Soviet wealth.
A lot of it came here, to the United States.
Can you talk about this?
I can tell you about a guy who was formerly very high up in the CIA. I called him about a something I was writing on Russian wealth
smuggled through the banks into the United States, and he said, We have informed the FBI exactly where all this wealth is in
the United States but we are under strict political orders to do nothing about it. Now, the interesting thing is, why now? Well,
it would have badly damaged the Yeltsin regime, which the Clinton administration had unconditionally embraced, but also because that
money became part of the flourishing stock and real estate markets here at that time.
Even today in Russia, when you ask people if they wish the Soviet Union hadn't ended, you're still getting over 60 percent, among
young people, too, because they hear the stories from their parents and grandparents. It requires a separate study, but it's not
rocket science. If young kids see their grandparents dying prematurely because they're not being paid their pensions, they're going
to resent it. When the bottom fell out of the Soviet welfare state and out of the professions, what happened in the 1990s was that
the Soviet middle class- which was one of the most professional and educated, and had some savings and which therefore should have
been the building block of a Russian free market sector- that middle class was wiped out, and it's never been recreated. Instead,
you got a country of impoverished people and of very, very rich people-with a small middle class serving the rich. That changed under
Putin; Putin has rebuilt the middle class, gradually.
The Russian middle class isn't the same as ours. A lot of Russia's middle class are people who are on the federal budget: Army
officers, doctors, scientists, teachers-these are all federal budget people. They're middle class, but they don't become middle class
as autonomous property owners. A lot of my friends are members of this class, and a lot of them are very pro-Putin, but a lot of
my friends are very anti-Putin, too. The thing about the Soviet Union can be summarized very simply: The Soviet Union lasted 70-plus
years, so that would be less than the average life of an American male today. A person cannot jump out of his or her autobiography
any more than they can jump out of their skin; it's your life. You were born in the Soviet Union, you had your first sexual experience
in the Soviet Union, you were educated, you got a career, you got married, you raised your kids: That was your life. Of course you
miss it, certainly parts of it.
There were ethnic nationalities in the Soviet Union who hated it and wanted to break away, and this became a factor in 1991, but
for a great many people- certainly the majority of Russians and a great many Ukrainians and Belorussians and the central Asians-
it's not surprising that 25 years later, those adults still remember the Soviet Union with affection. This is normal, and I don't
find anything bad in it. You know, Putin wasn't actually the first to say this but he did say it and it's brilliant and tells you
who Putin is and who most Russians are. He said this: Anyone who doesn't regret the end of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone
who thinks you can recreate the Soviet Union has no head. That's it, that's exactly right!
Didn't Putin say that the end of the Soviet Union was the 20th century's greatest catastrophe?
It all has to do with the word "the." There's no "the" in Russian. Did Putin say, in translation, that the end of the Soviet Union
was "the" greatest catastrophe of the 20th century? If so, there's something wrong with that, because for Jews it was the Holocaust.
Or did he say, "one of" the greatest catastrophes?
I would have guessed the latter.
All four professional translators I sent Putin's phrase to said you have to translate it as "one of the greatest catastrophes
of the 20th century." Now, we can have a discussion. He's taken a moderate position, but what are the others? Fair enough, but catastrophe
for whom? Americans don't think it was a catastrophe. Putin would say, "Look, 20 million Russians found themselves outside the country
when the Soviet Union broke up, that was a tragedy for them, a catastrophe. Seventy or 80 percent plunged into poverty in the 1990s,
lost everything. Can I put that on the list of "one of the greatest?" I would say sure, because for everybody there's a greater catastrophe.
For the Jews there's no catastrophe greater than the Holocaust. For the Armenians, their genocide. Again, people can't jump out of
their history. A tolerant, democratic person acknowledges that. Each people and nation has its own history. I'd like to write an
article about this, but I'm not going to live long enough to write all the articles or books I want to write. We say, for example,
the Russians have not come to grips with and fully acknowledged the horrors of Stalinism and its victims. I would argue in this article
that they have done more to acknowledge the horrors of Stalinism than we have of slavery.
Interesting.
For example, do we have a national museum of the history of slavery in the United States? They're building a large one in Moscow
to commemorate Stalin's victims. He recently signed a decree mandating a monument in central Moscow to those victims.
In the way of being moved by some of the things you write, I've wanted to ask you about this for years. It has to do with
the sentiments of Russians and what they wanted, their ambitions for themselves, some form of… as I read along in these passages
I kept saying, "I wonder if he's going to use the phrase 'social democracy.'" And, sure enough, you did. These passages got me to
take Rudolph Bahro [author of "The Alternative in Eastern Europe"] off the shelf. The obvious next step after East-West tension subsided
was some form of social democracy. I don't know where you want to put it. I put it between Norway and Germany somewhere. To me what
happened instead is a horrific tragedy, not only for Russia but for Eastern Europe.
My problem with this begins with the fact that I'm not a communist, I'm not a socialist, a social democrat. I'd like to have enough
money to be a real capitalist, but it's a struggle. [Laughs.] I don't have a vested interest in one of the "isms" or the
ideologies, but I agree with you. I don't know about Eastern Europe, let's leave it aside, but look at Russia. You'd have thought
that the logical outcome of the dismantling of the Stalinist Communist system, because the system was built primarily by Stalin from
the 1930s on, would have been Russian social democracy and that, of course, was what Gorbachev's mission was. Lots of books have
been written, most persuasively by Archie Brown, the great British scholar, who knows Gorbachev personally, probably as well as I
do, that Gorbachev came to think of himself as a European social democrat while he was still in power. That's what his goal was.
He had this close relationship with the Social Democratic prime minister of Spain, I forget his name.
Zapatero?
I don't remember, but I remember that they did a lot of social democratic socializing and talking.
Felipe Gonzalez, I think it was.
Gonzalez, that's right. Gorbachev was a very well-informed man and his advisors during his years in power were mostly social democrats
and had been for years. Their mission had been to transform the Soviet Union. Now, remember, Lenin began as a social democrat, and
the original model for Lenin had been not only Marx but the German Social Democratic Party. The Bolshevik or Communist Party was
originally the Russian Social Democratic Party, which split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. So in a way, and I once said this to
Gorbachev, historically you want to go back to Lenin before he became a Bolshevik. He said, "Well that's kind of complicated." Then
Gorbachev said, "Everybody agrees Russia is a left-of-center country."
The Russian people are left of center. They're a welfare-state country. Gorbachev had this interesting conversation with Putin,
when he went to tell Putin that he, Gorbachev, was going to start a social democratic party. There had been several start-ups and
they never went anywhere. And Putin said that's the right thing to do, because Russia really is a left-of-center country. So Putin
said the same thing. And so Russia is, if you look at the history of Russia…
Are you talking about Russia very early, thinking about Russian givenness to community and all that?
However you put it all together, the peasant tradition, the urban tradition, the socialist tradition. Almost all the revolutionary
parties were socialist. You didn't have a Tea Party among them. This is a Russian tradition. Now, it's obviously changed, but I would
say that today, looking at the polls, most Russians overwhelmingly believe that the state has obligations that include medical care,
free education, and guaranteeing everybody a job. In fact, it's in the Russian constitution, the guarantee of a job. Most Russians
feel there should not be a "free market" but a social or regulated market, that some things should be subsidized, that the government
should regulate certain things, and that nobody should be too rich or too poor. For that you get 80 percent of the vote every time.
So that's a social democratic program, right? Why don't they have it?
I ask everybody in Russia who wants a social democratic party. They exist, but not a party that can win elections? What's the
problem here? I think know, but I want to hear Russians tell me what's right. People cite what you and I would guess. First of all,
there's the hangover from communism, which was social democratic and somewhat socialist, in some form.
Second, and this is probably the key thing, social democratic movements tended to grow out of labor movements-labor unions, historically,
in England and Scandinavia and Germany. They became the political movement of the labor movement, the working class movement. So
you normally get a labor movement that favors political action instead of strikes, creates a political party, you have a parliamentary
system, they begin to build support in the working class, elements of the middle class join them, and you end up eventually with
European social democracy.
Old Labour in Britain is a perfect example.
Well, the labor unions in Russia are a complete mess. I shouldn't say that, but they're complicated. The major one remains the
old Soviet official one, which is in bed deeply with state employers. The independent one, or ones, haven't been able to get enough
traction. In almost every European country there were circumstances, you might say the political culture was favorable. Those objective
circumstances don't exist [in Russia]. First, you have an insecure savaged middle class that's seen its savings confiscated or devalued
repeatedly in the last 25 years. You've got a working class trapped between oligarchs, state interests and old industries, and private
entrepreneurs who are very vulnerable. In other words, the working class itself is in transition. Its own insecurities don't lead
it to think in terms of political organizations but in terms of issues-of whether Ford Motor Company is going to fire them all tomorrow.
They're localized issues.
Then you don't have a leadership. Leadership really matters. No one has emerged, either in the Russian parliament or in Russian
political life. By the 1990s Gorbachev was past his prime and too hated for what had happened to the country. He hoped to be, when
he ran for president that time [in 1996] and got 1 percent, he hoped to be the social democratic leader. There are a couple guys
in Parliament who aspire to be the leader of Russian social democracy…. When I'm asked, and I've told this to young social democrats
and to Gennady Zyuganov, whom I've known for 20 years, the leader of the Russian Communist Party, the only real electoral party,
that Russia needs social democracy with a Russian face….
What this means is that the most important force in Russia, and people were wrong to say Putin created it, is nationalism. This
began, in fact, under Stalin. It was embedded during the Brezhnev years, and it was overshadowed during perestroika in the
late-1980s. Then there was an inevitable upsurge as a result of the 1990s. You cannot be a viable political candidate in Russia today
unless you come to grips with nationalism.
Therefore, the best way, in my judgment, if you also want democracy, is social democracy with a Russian nationalist face. What's
interesting is the guy who was until recently the most popular opposition leader, Navalny [Alexei Navalny, the noted anti-corruption
activist], who got nearly 30 per cent of the vote in the Moscow mayoral elections and then blew it by becoming again a foe of the
entire system instead of building on his electoral success-he's too nationalistic for the taste of a lot of democrats.
Truly? You wouldn't know it from what you read.
He's got a bad history in regards to the Caucasus people, among others. But what's interesting in this regard is, we don't ever
speak of American nationalism. We call it patriotism. It's weird, isn't it? We don't have a state, we have a government….
Every American politician who seeks the presidency in effect tries to make American nationalism the program of his or her candidacy,
but they call it patriotism. They're fully aware of the need to do this, right? So why they think Putin doesn't have to do it, too,
is completely beyond me. There's no self-awareness.
In Russia, people had lost hope tremendously after 1991 but their hope later attached to Putin-imagine what he faced. For example,
can you imagine becoming the leader of such a country and for the sake of consensus having a textbook putting together Tsarist, Soviet
and post-Soviet history? Our presidents had a hard time dealing with slave and post-slave, Civil War and post-Civil War history.
How do they do it? Each president did it differently, but Putin inherited this conflicting history, and the way he's tried to patch
all three together into a consensual way for Russians to view their history and to teach kids in school is very interesting. Now,
of course, it's being ruptured again with this war and with Crimea and with this new nationalism.
I'd like to change the subject. Often in the books you mention an interest in alternatives: What could've happened if
this or that hadn't. We just covered one, the missed opportunity for a historically logical social democratic outcome in Russia.
How do you account for this tendency in your thinking?
We have formative experiences-what shaped you, at least so you think when you look back. You don't know it at the time, you don't
know a formative experience is formative until later. You'd agree with that.
It's only in hindsight. "Reality takes form only in memory." Proust.
For me it was growing up in the segregated South. But the reality was valid in retrospect, because I later realized that what
I was doing had been so shaped by growing up in the segregated South, the way I reacted to that and the way I learned from it later,
actually, in a strange way, led me to Russia.
You suggested this in the book on gulag returnees, "The Victims Return." I wonder if you could explain the connection.
How did growing up in Kentucky [Cohen was raised in Owensboro] lead you to Russian studies, and what does it do for your analysis
of the Russian situation? How does a Kentucky childhood keep you alert to alternatives?
Well, you have to remember what segregation was. I didn't understand this as a little boy, but it was American apartheid. Owensboro,
probably had fewer than 20,000 people then, including the farmers. For a kid growing up in a completely segregated county, first
of all, the world you're born into is the normal world. I had no questions about it…. I didn't perceive the injustice of it.
And then you get older and you begin to see the injustice and you wonder, how did this happen?… At Indiana University I run into
this professor who becomes my mentor, Robert C. Tucker, [Tucker, who died in 2010, was a distinguished Russianist and author of a
celebrated biography of Stalin]. I'd been to Russia-accidentally, I went on a tour-and he asked, "What in Russia interests you?"
And I said, "Well, I'm from Kentucky, and I've always wondered if there was an alternative in Kentucky's history between being deep
South and not being deep South." And Tucker said, "You know, one of the biggest questions in Russian history is lost alternatives.
Nobody ever studies them." And I said, "Aha!"
So the title of your 2009 book, "Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives," is in his honor?
I began to live in Russia in 1976, for two or three months a year until they took my visa away in 1982. This is when I got deeply
involved in the dissident movement, smuggling manuscripts out and books back in and all these things. I begin to think, how does
Russia change today? And my mind reverted to segregation and the end of segregation and the friends and foes of change…. I wrote
an article called "The Friends and Foes of Change" about reformism and conservatism in the Soviet system, because I thought that
it was institutions, it was culture, it was history and leaders and that you needed a conjunction of these events before you could
get major change in Russia and the Soviet Union…. I published that as an article in 1976 or 1977 and I expanded it for a book I wrote,
"Rethinking the Soviet Experience," which was published in 1985, a month before Gorbachev came to power. And everybody would later
say, "He foresaw Gorbachev."
Actually I didn't quite. What I foresaw was perestroika. For me it wasn't about the name of the leader, but the policy
such leader would enact. I got one thing wrong. Because it was so hard to make this argument in Cold War America, that the Soviet
Union had a capacity for reform awaiting it, if factors came together. I didn't think to carry the argument beyond liberalization
to actual democratization. So I didn't foresee a Gorbachev who would enact actual democratization, free voting, and dismantle the
Communist Party…. But I always thought that thinking about the history of Kentucky, living through segregation, watching the change,
seeing the civil rights movement, seeing the resistance to it and why helped me think more clearly about the Soviet Union under Brezhnev
and about my dissident friends. And I also knew reformers in the party bureaucracy pretty well, and when we would talk at night,
I never mentioned this but my mind would always kind of drift back.
The connection is not at all obvious but you explain it very well and it's clear once you do.
Well, sometimes people read a book that opens their eyes. I think the whole secret, particularly as you get older… Trotsky I think
wrote that after some age, I think he said 39 or 45, all we do is document our prejudices. And there's some truth to that, obviously.
But one of the ways that you avoid becoming dogmatic about your own published views is to keep looking for things that challenge
what you think. You try to filter them through whatever intellectual apparatus you've been using for, in my case, 40 years.
I thought it would be interesting to get through those sections of Kennan's journals ["The Kennan Diaries," 2014] that
would be germane to our exchange. What struck me coming away from them was the enormous sadness and pessimism that hung over him
in the later years. I wonder if you share that.
My position has always been, America doesn't need a friend in the Kremlin. We need a national security partner. Friendships often
don't last. Partnerships based on common interests, compatible self-interests, do.
I have always known such a partnership would be difficult to achieve because there are so many differences, conflicts, and Cold
War landmines. There were numerous chances to enhance the relationship-during the Nixon-Brezhnev détente period, Gorbachev and Reagan,
Gorbachev and Bush, even with Putin after 9/11, when he helped [George W.] Bush in Afghanistan. But they all became lost opportunities,
those after 1991 lost mainly in Washington, n ot Moscow.
When I speak of lost alternatives I do not mean the counter-factuals employed by novelists and some historians-the invention of
"what-ifs." I mean actual alternatives that existed politically at turning points in history, and why one road was taken and not
the other. Much of my work has focused on this large question in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history and in U.S.-Russian relations.
So you ask if I'm disappointed by the lost opportunities for an American-Russian partnership, especially in light of the terrible
confrontation over Ukraine? Having struggled for such a partnership for about 40 years, yes, of course, I'm personally disappointed-and
even more so by the Ukraine crisis because I think it may be fateful in the worst sense.
On the other hand, as an historian who has specialized in lost alternatives, well, now I have another to study, to put in historical
context and analyze. And it's my historical analysis-that an alternative in Ukraine was squandered primarily in Washington, not primarily
in Moscow-that those who slur me don't like.
To which I reply, Let them study history, because few of them, if any, seem ever to have done so.
Patrick Smith is the author of "Time
No Longer: Americans After the American Century."He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong
and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four
previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications.
Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist.
Editor's Note: This interview was recorded on Wednesday, before the
ceasefire agreement
in Minsk. Stephen Cohen is Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and Princeton, and he is a contributing editor
to The Nation. He is also the author of 'Soviet
Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War'. You can find more interviews and articles by Professor Cohen
World Leaders,
Media,
World) The regime has repeatedly carried out artillery and air
attacks on city centers, creating a humanitarian catastrophe-which is all but ignored by the US political-media establishment.
Stephen F. Cohen
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Prof. Stephen F. Cohen © Getty Images via AFP / Eugene Gologursky 118 Follow RT on
Stephen F. Cohen, the leading American Russia expert of his generation and a celebrated historian of Russia and the Soviet Union, who became a vocal critic of Washington's "new Cold War" with Moscow, has died at the age of 81.
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January 11, 2020 © Photo: Government.ru There've been ongoing propaganda pieces that skirt over some inconvenient realities, for those seeking to unfairly admonish Russia in the Olympic movement. One case in point is the January 2 Reuters article " Use 1992 Yugoslavia Precedent for Russians in Tokyo – Historian ". With a stated " some Russians ", that article suggestively under-represents the actual number of 2018 Russian Winter Olympians at Pyeongchang, while supporting a hypocritically flawed aspect, having to do with Yugoslavia in 1992.
