COMPILED BY DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/12/omni-sovietrussophobia-anthology-5.html
What’s at Stake: The search for the truth. I watch detective mysteries on PBS especially for their appreciation of the human intellect and scrupulous ethics. All present the search, not for an alternative reality, as the W. Bush administration claimed proudly for itself, but for the truth to be discovered. The latest Hercule Poirot drama, “Sad Cypress,” recounted the story of a young woman accused of premediated murder. Under British law, she was innocent until proven guilty, and had been permitted to hire a skilled lawyer to advocate her innocence. But the crime was so perfectly performed that even the accused and her lawyer were baffled. A jury of her peers studied the testimony and voted unanimously for hanging. The truth had been discovered; justice was to be served. Civilization at its best had sought reality, the truth, found it, the jury and judge thought, and all could feel satisfied that everything was done that could have been done.
The convicted criminal was not, however, guilty, and legendary detective Hercule Poirot agreed to probe into the case despite the odds. He is by reasoning, training, and experience skeptical of appearances, even of shut and closed situations. Simple appearances sometimes obscured complicated subsructures. Official conclusions sometimes omitted crucial considerations. Layers of lying sometimes corrupted even our highest, noblest procedures for finding the truth.
The convicted murderer had an adept, honest, dedicated lawyer. He performed his job superlatively. Yet he had not yet reached the truth.
Poirot would dig deeper into the events, uncover hidden facts still hidden, reveal overlooked contradictions, assemble additional evidence, and pierce deceit. He would not be discovering another truth about the case, as some politicians claim for themselves, but Poirot would employ reason and persistence and evidence to find the narrative which was the truth.
This model, surely an apex of our civilization, I try to apply to much more complicated historical events, as in my online Anthologies on the US enmity against Russia as exemplified by US support of Ukraine. The US and its NATO allies have acted as prosecutor, accusing Russia and its President Putin for grave crimes against other nations and against humanity, even the crime of genocide. The US and its allies have acted as Judge and jury, and have concluded with unqualified guilty verdicts on all counts. First-degree murder. A jury of their human peers studied the evidence, the testimonies, and voted unanimously for hanging. The truth had been discovered; justice was to be served. The testimony, the evidence, the numerous witnesses brought to the bar of public opinion have received widespread, open discussion throughout the West. And their verdict was: guilty, monstrously guilty. Monster Putin must hang.
The potential consequences of such a verdict are horrendous to contemplate, most of all by the threat of nuclear conflagration by two nuclear powers on hair-trigger alert.
But there is one flaw in this structure of what should be Justice. The alleged crime, pleads the accused, was provoked.
The West offered only a Prosecutor (composed of thousands of prosecutors). And that massive Prosecution, the combined legal and propaganda apparatus of the West, hardened by the century-old, accumulated bigotry against the Soviet Union/Russia, and lavishly financed, is massively biased against the Defendant, who is not in the Courtroom. The White House nor any other Western government includes a spokesperson for Russia. The Defense—the defendant and his lawyer– is not in the courtroom where the standards of a fair trial might exist to counter the onslaught of accusations streaming from the executives of all Western nations and from the mainstream media of the West.
Nor is an unbiased independent investigator given access to the prosecution teams of the US and NATO. No Poirot is allowed to participate. Until the predictable verdict is produced and repeated by Western nation after nation: Putin is a heinous criminal who invaded the Ukraine without provocation, and continues his war crimes against that innocent nation.
But because the “trial” was so egregiously onesided, and with Hercule Poirot and all of the great detectives figuratively as their guide, hundreds of scholars and reporters world-wide have volunteered to investigate the truth. Not merely as an alternative to the Russia bad, US/NATO good narrative, but as the truth, because the official Western narrative causes so much harm–horrendous violence, destruction of habitats, cities, homes, deaths of tens of thousands without a just trial of the alleged demonic malefactor.
That’s the additional dimension. Truth about what? What’s at Stake through truth? The answer is known but not present. World peace instead of nuclear holocaust. (My four Soviet/Russophobia anthologies provide forty-eight essays and reviews. More in preparation. A search of UAF’s Mullins Library catalog for Russophobia turned up 205 items. There’s no excuse for not being informed about our fiendish enemy that has given our nation a purpose for so many decades, provided so many jobs, and enriched so many millionaires and billionaires.)
CONTENTS
BIGOTRY V. SOVIET UNION/RUSSIA
Victor Grossman. “Achtung! Die Russen kommen!”
Walter Hixson. “The Myth of U.S. Exceptionalism.”
Sharon Rudahl. …A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson.
Reuters. Germany’s two-year silence.
Diana Johnstone. Russia not invited to D-Day Remembrance.
William Drew. New Cold War Russophobic propaganda.
Katrina vanden Heuvel. Biden’s old Cold warmaking foreign policies.
George Paulson. New McCarthyism. (Art Hobson, American Midnight by Adam Hochschild.)
George Paulson. Anti-Russia Victoria Nuland Resigning.
Dave DeCamp. “Victoria Nuland, Notorious Russia Hawk, Resigning. . . .
Joe Lauria. “Russian Imperialism?”
TEXTS ANTHOLOGY #5
Fear Mongering in Germany 1914 to Present
Victor Grossman. “Nursery Rhymes and Politics.” Berlin Bulletin No. 229, November 16, 2024.” Mronline.org (11-18-24).
Billions were spent both on aid to the Zelensky government…as an urgent defense necessity to counter “the Russian threat.” This threat has appeared and reappeared in Germany in 1914, the 1930s, after 1945 and now again, louder than ever, with similar barked Prussian commands: “Achtung! Die Russen kommen!” as dangerously false as ever, and often followed by eastward expansion, invasion and, far too often, catastrophe, with atomic annihilation an added danger this time around.
[Most of the essays in this Anthology were published in 2024. The following from 1988 and 2023 are included for background.]
US Good v. Soviet Bad
Walter Hixson. “The Myth Of U.S. Exceptionalism.” February 25, 1988. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-02-25/news/8804020378_1_native-americans-exceptionalismforeign-policy
In 1988 Walter L. Hixson was a visiting assistant professor of history at Northwestern University, where he taught courses on U.S. foreign policy and Soviet-American relations. He also is the author of a study of the career of Soviet expert George F. Kennan. The following focuses on US misbehavior toward the Soviet Union.
Most people would agree that the two most vital issues in American foreign policy today are the Central American crisis and arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union. In assessing American policy on these two issues, most politicians and opinion leaders-and thus most of the public-focus on our communist adversaries. Can we trust the Soviets? Will the Sandinistas live up to their pledges? That these questions, though clearly pertinent, should dominate our thinking reflects a disturbing tendency among many Americans to assume that the United States pursues noble and worthy objectives while its adversaries-particularly the “communists“-embody all that is evil and are not to be trusted. Underlying these assumptions, as historians have long recognized, is a widespread faith in American “exceptionalism“-the belief that the United States is a “chosen“ nation whose values and democratic institutions represent the best hopes for humankind. Unfortunately, the great national myth of American exceptionalism is rooted in a widespread ignorance of history, and this ignorance breeds intolerance and hypocrisy in our approach to Central America, arms control and foreign affairs in general. The first ingredient of a more effective foreign policy might be a willingness to look more critically at ourselves. Despite the recent bicentennial of the Constitution, too few Americans are willing to recognize that the United States has been an imperfect democracy. It was initially governed by a privileged elite of white propertied males; women were nonvoting and (as they remain today) nonpersons under the Constitution; a cruel enslavement of blacks was sanctioned; and Native Americans were to be all but exterminated. The point is not that the United States is more or less evil than other peoples of the world but that we are not as exceptional as some, including Ronald Reagan and most of the 1988 presidential candidates, would have us believe. Greater recognition of our own failures and limitations would make us, not a weaker power, but a stronger and wiser one. For example, if more Americans were aware of our own early national struggle and halting approach to democracy, they would be less likely to demand that Nicaragua-a country wracked by war and deprivation and having little or no democratic political tradition promptly assume all the trappings of a pluralistic democracy or once again face the wrath of our refinanced covert armies. After first adopting greater patience and humility, we could then apply some lessons from the history of postwar international relations to our approach to the problems of Central America. The 1948 Soviet-Yugoslav rift, the Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s and contemporary disputes within the communist world, for example, all suggest that nationalism and local cultural tradition tend to override loose alliances based on ideology. Yet too many Americans glibly assume that a Sandinista regime will serve as a Soviet“beachhead“ in Central America. Those who point to Cuba as an example of Soviet intentions invariably oversimplify the complex course of Cuban-American (and Cuban-Soviet) relations and ignore the extent to which our own hostile response to Fidel Castro encouraged Cuba`s close ties with the Soviet Union. Faith in American exceptionalism and historical blinders also undermine our efforts to mold a more constructive relationship with the Soviet Union. Like our forebears who reassured themselves of their own virtues by depicting the Old World as a den of corruption and iniquity, Americans persist in seeing the darkest motives behind virtually all Soviet behavior. The most obvious example is our unrealistic 40-year obsession with the prospect of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe; there is no reason to believe the Kremlin has ever considered launching an invasion. Another is arms control; some Americans still oppose arms accords, or favor “killer amendments,“ on grounds that the Kremlin leaders enter into such negotiations disingenuously and that they “cheat.“ This argument not only falsely implies that the Soviets have no real stake in arms control but also constitutes a double standard insofar as it ignores our own violations of agreements, such as the unilateral repudiation of SALT II and the current call for a broad interpretation of the 1972 ABM agreement. The broad interpretation, as Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia and others have pointed out, actually constitutes a repudiation of the ABM accord in order to pave the way for “Star Wars,“ which, incidentally, finds America once again in the familiar position of escalating the arms race while couching its actions under the benign rubric of “deterring aggression.“ Again, the point is not that the Soviets are actually “good“ while we persist in seeing them as “bad.“ It would be naive to suggest that the Soviet Union does not pose problems for American diplomacy. . . .
Notable Victim of Anti-Communism
Post-WWII, Anti-Communist Cold War and Paul Robeson.
Sharon Rudahl. Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson, edited by Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware (Rutgers U, 2020), 142 pages. Review by Michael D. Yates. :“‘Ballad of an American’: The Illustrious Life of Paul Robeson, Newly Illustrated.” (Nov 01, 2023). topics: Culture Inequality Media Movements Race Places: Americas United States
Publisher’s description: “The book, Ballad of An American, is a beautifully rendered graphic biography that takes readers, especially those not familiar with Robeson, on an exciting journey through his remarkable life. He rose like a shooting star, from humble beginnings to the height of worldwide acclaim—and he fell nearly as rapidly as he shot to stardom, destroyed by the U.S. government and powerful right-wing elements after the Second World War. He was deemed a danger to the white and imperialist ruling class, and with good reason. As we shall see, what Robeson stood for and acted upon threatened to incite an uprising by the working class, especially the Black superexploited part of it.”
FROM FIRST COLD WAR (THAT NEVER PAUSED) TO NEW COLD WAR
The final several pages of the review place Robeson in the persecutive, bigoted (racist and anti-socialist) period of post-WWII USA. Right wing and fascist forces “remained alive and active” following WWII, and “a new, Cold War, began” with the Soviet Union as “public enemy number one.” The new CIA “began to undermine radical movements all over the world.” In the US the anti-labor Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act were enacted by the Republican Congress. That is, immediately following WWII, anti-democratic legislation, attacks on the Bill of Rights, increased. One Taft-Hartley amendment required that union officers sign an oath stating that they were not communists, and the two main labor federations expelled ten unions for their communist members. It just happened that those unions were the most progressive, having the best collective bargaining agreements, the most racial and gender equality, the most opposition to US imperialism. It’s a familiar history, but freshly enlightening when seen from Robeson’s experience and the New Cold War and its several hot wars. For “the U.S. government was quick to neutralize Robeson.” –Dick
Michael D. Yates is editorial director of Monthly Review Press. For many years, he taught working people in labor education programs throughout the United States, seeking to teach, speak, and write for and with the working class, and not just about it. He has helped organize labor unions and written extensively about them.
Caitlin Johnstone: Biden Promotes Hardliners. Consortium News (7-29-23) https://consortiumnews.com/2023/07/28/caitlin-johnstone-biden-promotes-hardliners/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=011679b3-48b0-4181-8c75-4319f21f909d
Virulent Russia hawk Victoria Nuland and virulent China hawk Charles Q. Brown are being elevated to lofty positions by the White House.
The Biden administration looks set to become even more warlike if you can imagine that, with virulent Russia hawk Victoria Nuland and virulent China hawk Charles Q. Brown now being elevated to lofty positions by the White House.
Nuland, the wife of alpha neocon Robert Kagan, has been named acting deputy secretary of state by President Joe Biden, at least until a new deputy secretary has been named. This places her at second-in-command within the State Department, right behind Tony Blinken.
In an article about Nuland’s unique role in souring relations between the U.S. and Russia during her previous tenure in the State Department under President Barack Obama, Responsible Statecraft’s Connor Echols writes the following of the latest news:
“Nuland’s appointment will be a boon for Russia hawks who want to turn up the heat on the Kremlin. But, for those who favor a negotiated end to the conflict in Ukraine, a promotion for the notoriously ‘undiplomatic diplomat’ will be a bitter pill.
A few quick reminders are in order. When Nuland was serving in the Obama administration, she had a now-infamous leaked call with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. As the Maidan Uprising roiled the country, the pair of American diplomats discussed conversations with opposition leaders, and Nuland expressed support for putting Arseniy Yatseniuk into power. (Yatseniuk would become prime minister later that month, after Russia-friendly former President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country.) At one memorable point in the call, Nuland said “Fu–k the EU” in response to Europe’s softer stance on the protests.
The controversy surrounding the call — and larger implications of U.S. involvement in the ouster of Yanukovych — kicked up tensions with Russia and contributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to seize Crimea and support an insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Her handing out food to demonstrators on the ground in Kyiv probably didn’t help either.
Nuland, along with State Department sanctions czar Daniel Fried, then led the effort to punish Putin through sanctions. Another official at State reportedly asked Fried if ‘the Russians realize that the two hardest-line people in the entire U.S. government are now in a position to go after them?’ ”
In a 2015 Consortium News article headlined “The Mess That Nuland Made,” the late Robert Parry singled out Nuland as the primary architect of the 2014 regime change operation in Ukraine, which, as Aaron Maté explained last year, paved the way to the war we’re seeing there today. Hopefully her position winds up being temporary.
In other news, the Senate Arms Services Committee has voted to confirm Biden’s selection of Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing Mark Milley. A full senate vote will now take place on whether to confirm Brown — currently the Air Force Chief of Staff — for the nation’s highest military office.
Brown is unambiguous about his belief that the U.S. must hasten to militarize against China in the so-called Indo-Pacific to prepare for confrontation between the two powers, calling for more U.S. bases in the region and increased efforts to arm Taiwan during his hearing before the Senate Arms Services Committee earlier this month.
Back in May, Moon of Alabama flagged Brown’s nomination in an article which also noted that several advocates of military restraint had been resigning from their positions within the administration, including Wendy Sherman, the deputy secretary of state replaced by Nuland.
It’s too soon to draw any firm conclusions, but to see voices of restraint stepping down and proponents of escalation stepping up could be a bad portent of things to come.
SOVIET/RUSSOPHOBIA ON D-Day 2024
Diana Johnstone. Consortium News – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Jun 2024 – “Ceremonies were held last week commemorating the 80th anniversary of Operation Overlord, the Anglo-American landing on the beaches of Normandy that took place on June 6, 1944, known as D-Day. For the very first time, the Russians were ostentatiously not invited to take part in the ceremonies. “
[This US/UK, unjustified, arrogant, hostile behavior is just another gratuitous insult to the Russians. D-Day would have been F-Day had the Nazis not been preoccupied with invading Russia where its 22 divisions in Operation Barbarossa had been engaged against the Russians. In the Battle of Stalingrad alone, during the winter of 1942-43, the German army lost some 200,000 to half-a-million troops, plus 90,000 captured. Operation Overlord would have been Operation Underlord had those troops been on the French coast on June 6, 1944. (The Russians suffered 1,100,000 casualties in WWII. –Dick)
Reuters. “Germany’s Scholz speaks with Putin in first contact since Dec. 2022.” ACURA (11-18-24).
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone for an hour on Friday afternoon.
Read in browser »
New Cold War 2024 Russophobic propaganda targeting history and culture
William M. Drew: The Hoover Institution Declares War on Russia.” ACURA ViewPoint: American Committee for US-Russia Accord. Jun 19, 2024 .
In sharp contrast to the original Cold War of 1946-1989 which generally differentiated between Russia as a nation and its then-Communist government, the renewed hostilities between Russia and the West over the Ukraine conflict have seen an ominous wave of Russophobic propaganda targeting the history and culture of Russia. The West’s ideological crusade […] Read in browser »
Katrina vanden Heuvel. “ Biden’s Foreign Policy is…Old.” ACURA American Committee for US-Russia Accord. Jun 14, 2024.
Biden’s foreign policy ideas are tired. . . . Read in browser »
POLITICS / JUNE 13, 2024
What’s Old About Biden? (It Isn’t His Age.) His foreign policy ideas are tired.
President Biden’s week in France featured a graceful waltz to classic tunes. The president used the D-Day anniversary in Normandy to remind the public about his commitment to defending democracy at home and abroad, and his efforts to expand and reinvigorate the NATO alliance. . . .
Biden came to office proclaiming a commitment to a new “foreign policy for the middle class.” Domestically, he broke with the neoliberal gospel of the conservative era, launching a bold progressive economic thrust—the beginnings of a green industrial policy, investment in rebuilding the country, aggressive trade and anti-trust policies, a push for progressive taxation, and more. Abroad, however, his policies have been defined by an emphasis on antiquated Cold War rhetoric and divisions, painting a global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, defining the response largely in military terms anchored in NATO and other military alliances, expanding already bloated military budgets and presence. While China was designated the new “peer competitor,” the battle with Russia over Ukraine became, for Biden, the signature struggle of the time. Even in the conflict in Gaza, Biden seemed wedded to a myopic support for a reactionary Israeli government that needed to be restrained, not provisioned.
Lost in this focus on old Cold War tropes and divisions are the new security threats that people face in their daily lives. In the United States, a million people died from the Covid pandemic, which is but the first of what surely will be new epidemics that will sweep an increasingly integrated world. Yet Covid has left the public health system here and globally in disarray, discredited, and defensive at a time when basic security requires far greater capacity.
Under relentless assault from the right and from entrenched interests, addressing climate change has lost momentum, even as the world has heated up far faster than predicted. Each of the last 12 months were the hottest in history. Extreme weather wreaks havoc, takes lives, and displaces people here and abroad in ever greater numbers. Yet the Biden administration will spend more on aid to Ukraine in one year than it will expend on its renewable energy investments at home. Abroad, our effort (in Biden’s words) to “defend freedom all around the world” militarily dwarfs urgently needed efforts to help peoples adapt to climate change and rebuild from extreme weather. That reality, in turn, feeds mass migration, increasingly fostering fear and divisions here and abroad.To see the truth of this one need only consider the ascendancy of European far-right parties in the EU elections last weekend.
On its own terms, Biden’s efforts to rally the world to a new cold-war division have failed. Our allies in Europe have paid a greater price from the sanctions on Russia than the Russians have in large part because China, India, and much of the world have rushed in to to buy Russian oil and replace Western suppliers. Russia’s economy continues to grow, with the World Bank recently announcing that it is now the world’s fourth-largest economy, surpassing Germany. This week, Russia plays host to the annual foreign ministers’ meeting of the BRICS countries. Five new countries—Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—have joined Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa in the group. They represent over one-third of the earth’s land mass, 45 percent of its population, over 40 percent of its oil production, and about one-fourth of its exports. Their combined gross domestic product (in purchasing power parity terms) equals about one-third of world GDP, exceeding that of the G-7, which convenes next week. While BRICS+ is far from a coherent economic block, it does represent the growing efforts to break old patterns and create new economic and political arrangements. Biden’s celebration of NATO and the military defense of democracy is speaking to a world that is no longer listening.
Foreign policies seldom decide presidential elections. Trump’s global posturing—impulsive, ignorant, nativist, isolationist, opportunistic—is a dangerous embarrassment. But Biden’s effort to contrast his steady leadership and embrace of NATO and the old certitudes of the Cold War era isn’t likely to gain traction. The president is focused on a war in Ukraine that isn’t going well and a humanitarian horror in Gaza that is indefensible. The administration has trampled the “rules-based order” that it preaches about. Worse, the president seems wedded to a worldview that is long past its expiration date. Lyndon Johnson, the last Democratic president who offered promise of domestic renewal, lost his war on poverty in the rice paddies of Vietnam. Let us hope that Biden, whose domestic initiatives offer great promise, does not suffer a similar fate.
McCarthyist Paranoia Redevivus
George Paulson. “McCarthyite Smearing Regarding Russia.”
Hi Dick,
In one of our previous communications, I pointed out that smearing American citizens who are against the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine as “Russian assets,” Russian propagandists,” “pro-Putin,” “Putin propagandists,” etc., is now routine among Democrats across the Blue spectrum, from progressives to liberals to moderates to conservatives. The smearing has now expanded to include those opposed to what’s happening in Gaza.
You asked for examples and I frankly didn’t know how to respond. Where to start? There are far too many examples to cite, from the top leadership of the Democratic Party, to your average garden variety #Resistance keyboard warrior.
Some of my favorites from the latter from social media that I personally witnessed were:
“How’s the weather in Moscow?”
“Are you paid in roubles?”
“What part of Moscow do you live in?”
Some of my favorites emanating from the former include:
Hillary Clinton’s smearing former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as being “groomed” by the Russians. Remember that one?
Chuck Schumer’s recent referring to the “Putin wing” of the Republican Party. Republicans who are opposed to sending more billions of US taxpayer dollars into the black hold of Kiev in a lost cause that may well get us into a direct war with nuclear-armed Russia.
Nancy Pelosi’s Statement that “all roads lead to Putin” referring to Trump and the party-approved nonsense that the Russians put Trump into the White House and that they controlled him through blackmail.
Nancy Pelosi’s characterisation of American citizens protesting the genocide in Gaza are being paid by the Kremlin and her suggestion that. The FBI look into their—that is, the American citizens exercising their First Amendment right to protest—their finances.
Nancy Pelosi yet again asking the rhetorical question (for her, rhetorical) Who benefits from Americans protesting the Gaza genocide? Answer: Donald Trump! And who benefits from Donald Trump? Putin!
There are a million more where those came from.
I’ll close by saying that McCarthyism was foundational to forming my political consciousness. In my view, McCarthyism was disgusting, anti-democratic, and profoundly un-American, and resorting to Neo-McCarthyite smears (such as those provided above) is equally disgusting, anti-democratic, and profoundly un-American.
George Paulson, 4-12-24
George – Thanks for including me in this response. I am reading a good book about the origins of much of this paranoid talk during 1914 to the mid-2020s: US entry into WW1 under Pres Wilson, revolution in Russia, anti-Communist fervor, pro-war fervor, anti-German fervor, founding of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, unions, union-busting. The book is American Midnight by Adam Hochschild. It reads like a novel, and is fascinating history. Art Hobson, 4-12-24 [Adam Hochschild is one of the best non-fiction writers writing today, with books on ending slavery in the British empire, WWI, colonialism in Africa, Spanish Civil War, etc. Google his books and bask in human intelligence and historical writing skill at their best. –Dick]
Victoria Nuland’s Anti-Russia Career from 2003 to 2024
George Paulson. “Bye bye Victoria.”
Here is a brief but very good summary of the bloody trail of destruction and carnage that has been Victoria Nuland’s long career.
Victoria Nuland resigns, Glenn Greenwald eviscerates leading neocon: Interview thehill.com
On Tue, Mar 5, 2024 at 8:31 PM George Paulson <gppaulson2@gmail.com> wrote:
Some great breaking news …. Victoria Nuland, aka “Regime Change Karen,” Queen of the Neocons, chief architect of our catastrophic failure of a Ukraine Project, a fixture of the DC establishment, the ugly face of “the Blob,” has resigned from the Biden administration! Methinks that maybe, just maybe, the Biden administration—or whoever has our demented commander in chief’s ear before Jill tucks him in for the night—maybe the Biden administration has finally come to terms with the undeniable fact that Russia is not going to be defeated in our Ukraine proxy war, that Project Ukraine is a lost cause, and that barring massive US escalation, the Kiev regime—a regime that Nuland literally midwifed—is living on borrowed time. Maybe, just maybe, the Biden administration has decided upon a change of course, no further escalation, maybe they’ve decided that they are not wiling to risk an all-out war with nuclear-armed Russia. Here’s hoping. Maybe that’s why she has decided to call it quits. Good riddance. Peace, George
And George offers “an old article that provides a little context on Nuland and the neocons: All in the Neocon Family alternet.org ‘
Dave DeCamp. “Victoria Nuland, Notorious Russia Hawk, Resigning from State Department.”
Nuland is most known for her role in the 2014 coup in Ukraine by Dave DeCamp March 5, 2024 at 1:32 pm ET CategoriesNewsTagsRussia, Ukraine
Victoria Nuland, Notorious Russia Hawk, Resigning from State Department – News From Antiwar.com news.antiwar.com
Victoria Nuland, a notorious Russia hawk most known for her role in the 2014 coup in Ukraine, will be retiring from the State Department in the coming weeks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Tuesday. Nuland has worked as the under-secretary of state for political affairs since 2021 and served as the acting deputy secretary of state for a few months until the position was filled by Kurt Campbell, a notorious China hawk. Nuland is the wife of Robert Kagan, one of the most influential American neoconservatives, and has worked for multiple administrations. In the George W. Bush administration, she served as deputy foreign policy advisor to then-Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003-2005 and later as the US representative to NATO.In the Obama administration, Nuland worked as a State Department spokeswoman and then as the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, from where she supported the Maidan protests in Ukraine that led to the overthrow of former President Victor Yanukovych.A leaked phone call between Nuland and then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt that was published in February 2014, not long before Yanukovych fled Ukraine, revealed the two US officials were discussing who should be in the next Ukrainian government.
The 2014 coup sparked the civil war in the Donbas, led to Russia absorbing Crimea, and NATO providing training and other kinds of support for Ukraine. These factors and others ultimately led to the February 2022 Russian invasion.In her current role, Nuland championed the proxy war in Ukraine and has been responsible for some of the most hawkish and reckless rhetoric coming from the Biden administration. In a recent interview with CNN, Nuland vowed the US would continue to “tighten the noose” on Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of her pitch for new Ukraine aid despite the reality that Ukraine is losing badly on the battlefield.. . .
Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave. View all posts by Dave DeCamp
Joe Lauria. “Russian Imperialism?” Consortium News (2-13-24). [Outstanding historical survey of Russia’s alleged imperialism. It is long, but you will find its sweep essential reading. –D]
Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin points to the fundamental difference between imperialism and revanchism as Western critics purposely or ignorantly confuse the two.
Amongst the condemnations that were hurled at Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin even before their interview was aired, was this gem from an unnamed European foreign affairs spokesman to The Guardian: “A spokesperson for the European Commission said it anticipated that the interview would provide a platform for Putin’s ‘twisted desire to reinstate’ the Russian empire. ‘We can all assume what Putin might say. I mean he is a chronic liar,’ said the EU’s spokesperson for foreign affairs. …
‘[Putin] is trying to kill as many Ukrainians as he can for no reason. There is only one reason for his twisted desire to reinstate the now imperialistic Russian empire where he controls everything in his neighbourhood and imposes his will. But this is not something we are able to tolerate or are willing to tolerate in Europe or the world in the 21st century.’” [Emphasis added.] . . . .
The Russians Are Coming … Again
After the interview, the Western media predictably dismissed it for a variety of reasons, including that it promoted Russian “imperialism.” The Economist wrote that Putin’s “obsession — Russia’s historical claim to Ukraine — is backed by a nuclear arsenal. … He denied any interest in invading Poland or Latvia (though he previously said the same about Ukraine).”
Western rhetoric about a resurgent “Russian imperialism” dates back to 2014, when Russia assisted Donbass in resisting the U.S.-backed unconstitutional change of government in Kiev. Western officials sought to characterize Russia’s action as an “invasion” that was part of a grand scheme by Putin to reconstitute the Soviet Empire and even threaten Western Europe. . . .
The Atlantic Council has been in the forefront of keeping this idea afloat.
Reconstituting the Soviet Empire would involve bringing the Central Asian Republics, Azerbaijan and Armenia, let alone the Baltics and the former Warsaw States, now part of NATO, under Moscow’s control.
A slew of articles since Russia’s 2022 invasion have harped on this theme, for example, in The Hill: “The US Has a Chance to Defeat Russian Imperialism for Good;” Foreign Policy: “The Inevitable Fall of Putin’s New Russian Empire;” and Salon: “How Russian Colonialism Took the Western Anti-Imperialist Left for a Ride.”
The absurdity of the notion of a threat to the West by Russian “imperialism” is underscored every time many of these same Western leaders and media ridicule how disastrously Russia has performed on the Ukrainian battlefield and how, in the words of Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission president, Russia must resort to washing machine parts to keep its military going.
How can Russia be so weak and incompetent and yet be such an imminent and menacing threat at the same time?
The late Russia specialist Stephen F. Cohen dismissed these fears as a dangerous demonization of Russia and Putin. Cohen repeatedly explained that Russia had neither the capacity nor the desire to start a war against NATO and was acting defensively against the alliance.
“How can Russia be so weak and incompetent and yet be such an imminent and menacing threat at the same time?”
This is clear from the decades-long Russian objection to NATO expansion (which Putin raised with Carlson), coming in the 1990s when Wall Street and the U.S. dominated Russia, asset-stripping the formerly state-owned industries and impoverishing the Russian people, while enriching themselves.
It is clear from Russia backing the Minsk Accords, which would have left Donbass as an autonomous part of Ukraine, and not rejoined to Russia.
And it is clear from the treaty proposals to NATO and the United States offered by Russia in December 2021 intended to avert Russian military intervention. The West rebuffed Russia on all three diplomatic initiatives.
While realists in Washington and Europe increasingly admit Ukraine is losing the war, neocon fantasists, desperate to keep it going, have revived the theme of the Russian threat to the West to counter congressional reluctance to throw away more money and more lives.
Trumped-up fear of Russia has served U.S. ruling circles well for more than 70 years. The first three National Intelligence Estimates of the C.I.A., from 1947 t0 1949, reported no evidence of a Soviet threat, no infrastructure to support a sustained threat, and no evidence of a desire for confrontation with the United States.
“Trumped-up fear of Russia has served U.S. ruling circles well for more than 70 years.”
Despite this, in 1948 a war scare was drummed up to save the U.S. aircraft industry, which had nearly collapsed with the end of the Second World War.
Then came the 1954 bomber gap and 1957 missile gap with the Soviet Union, now accepted as deliberate fictions. In 1976 then C.IA. Director George H.W. Bush approved a Team B, whose purpose was again to inflate Soviet military strength.
George Kennan, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow and America’s foremost expert on the Soviet Union tried to counter such exaggerations, including late in life when he opposed NATO expansion in the 1990s.
Now we are being asked again to believe another fictional story of a Russian threat to the West in order to save U.S. and European face — and Joe Biden’s presidency.
It is instead a projection to cover up its own authentic imperialism and the West’s perceived threat to Russia, a big part of what Putin was trying to get across in the Carlson interview.
Revanchism & Imperialism
The issue at hand is the fundamental difference between imperialism and revanchism. Western critics purposely or ignorantly confuse the two to serve their interests. Succinctly, the difference is this: imperialists take control of a country that does not want them there and resists. A revanchist wants to absorb former imperial lands where the population is largely the same ethnicity and welcomes the revanchist power to protect them from an outside threat.
Yes, Hitler was being revanchist in his defense of the German-speaking Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. But it was a first step in an imperial design to conquer countries that ultimately resisted him. Clinton’s effort to roll back her comments to say Putin is not as irrational as Hitler was her attempt to tamp down a suggestion that Putin wanted to conquer Europe as Hitler did.
“The issue at hand is the fundamental difference between imperialism and revanchism. Western critics purposely or ignorantly confuse the two to serve their interests.”
To call Putin’s move on Ukraine “imperialist” is to say Russia had never conquered those lands before and that he might indeed keep going to conquer lands Russia has never controlled: i.e., Western Europe.
Russian imperialism in Ukraine took place nearly 250 years ago under the reign of Catherine the Great. That was when the Russians defeated the Turks and occupied what came to be known as Novorossiya. Putin went back further than that to make Russian claims (Lenin in 1922 gave Donbass, and Khruschev in 1954 gave Crimea to Soviet Ukraine, not independent Ukraine) and he has been open about his feeling that those lands and Russia are one. He spoke at length about it in his interviews with Oliver Stone in 2017.
Despite these revanchist or irredentist positions on Ukraine, Putin did not act on them until 2022. Carlson asked Putin twice why he didn’t move on Ukraine earlier if he held these views and twice Putin evaded the question. The Western media is saying that Putin is lying about acting to defend the Russian speakers of the Donbass; that he was motivated by territorial expansion.
Putin was acting both to defend Donbass’ Russian speakers (who were under imminent renewed attack in February 2022) and also saw the opportunity to reunite the old imperial lands with Russia. That opportunity was seen in the Kremlin as a necessity because of the West’s rejection of Moscow’s diplomatic efforts to avoid conflict.
Given the results of the four regional referendums in 2022, plus the one in Crimea in 2014, it is clear the people of those regions wanted to rejoin Russia after the coup and the revival of Ukrainian extremism.
One can condemn or criticize revanchism, but one cannot call it imperialism.
Andrew Napolitano. “Biden’s Lust for War.” Consortium News (11-21-24).
The U.S. is waging war on Russia without a congressional declaration and in violation of treaty that requires the consent of the United Nations. Read here…
The war in Ukraine is an American war for which the United States government should be ashamed and blamed. It was initiated by President Joe Biden and then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, both of whom advised Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that if he rejected a peace treaty that his own government had freely negotiated and agreed to in 2022 with Russian negotiators, Ukraine could join NATO. The treaty was more than 100 pages in length, each page of which had been initialed by both sides, and its essence accepted by the Kremlin and by Kyiv — until Biden and Johnson advised against it. [See: The Failed Ukrainian Peace Deal] . . . . MORE
CONTENTS sOVIET/rUSSOPHOBIA #4
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/12/omni-sovietrussophobia-anthology-4.html
Scott Ritter. “Red Scare 2.0: Russophobia in America Today.”
Paul Robinson. “Canada’s ‘New Red Scare’….”
Video. “Durham Report a ‘Whitewash.’”
CBS News. Drone Strike on Kremlin.
Jeremy Kuzmarov. Russia excluded from Human Rights Council, De
Zaya’s The Human Rights Industry.
Elizabeth Vos. Pelosi and Palestinian Protesters.
Joe Lauria. Psyopcracy USA.
Stephen Cohen. US fear and loathing of China too.
Helen Caldicott. Missile Envy and US ”clinical paranoia.”
ACURA: American Committee for US-Russia Accord.