Say what you will about President Barack Obama — don’t mind if I do — but the guy could deliver a knockout line. Let’s remember one smash hit that’s close to Keating quality. Before the debates of 2012, Mitt Romney, then-GOP presidential nominee, had publicly declared Russia to be the USA’s “number one geopolitical foe.” The 1980s called, said Barack on TV, and they want their foreign policy back.
Oh, how we in the West laughed. The Cold War was some old guy thing. Five minutes later, it had become retro-chic, with a knitted Pussy Riot twist. The 1980s kept calling, and today the Cold War is reborn as US policy. Even as purportedly progressive outlets continue to report Trump-Putin conspiracy theory as fact — if you’ve bought US intelligence community talking points cheaply as most journalists have, get your refund from Putin critic Masha Gessen — the tanks roll toward Russia and the money rolls out.
That it remains possible for so many to declare Trump a Putin apologist is peculiar. Not only is evidence of collusion, election interference, golden showers, etc, about as compelling as an argument in The Guardian’s Australian op-ed pages. But, jeez, the USA and the Federation have come very close to fighting a proxy war in Syria and now, Cold War II is on.
Last weekend, US Secretary of Defence James Mattis unveiled a national strategy — AKA a rationale for the development of colossally expensive weapons—with Russia in its sights. Yesterday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that Russia “ultimately bears responsibility” for chemical attacks on Syrian civilians. Today, Trump signals the likely imposition of penalties on Russia’s finance sector, because something something North Korea.
It was in August of 2017 that the President (quietly) approved sanctions to a state led by a man anti-Trump outlets continue to insist he adores. It was during Trump’s inauguration that US troops moved through Poland toward the Russian border. More troops were deployed last October. A press that has long since forgotten the skill of non-complicity with US policy reports that the Polish people cheer these “exercises” by US troops. This might be down to a loathing for their Russian neighbours. Then again, Poland’s own Law and Justice leadership are nativist thugs for which the term “revisionist” is far too kind. Have you seen those guys who run Poland? I’d be cheering for any other power, too.
You want your foreign policy back? You got it. Both Democrats and Republicans now not only argue for sanctions and safeguards against the Russian Federation, they enact them. “The 1980s called” and brought us Joe Biden, whose old-school opposition to the Kremlin never went anywhere. Yesterday, Biden called to preserve “the foundations of Western democracy” through tougher treatment.
As a person with no stomach at all for gore, I do not care to imagine a tougher US approach to Russia. If sanctions, which were lethal in Iraq, are tightened against a nuclear power, I’m saving my crypto-change for some Nembutal. The Washington Post can produce as many Mueller-fuelled Trump-Putin erotic fictions as it wishes. These conspiracy theories, which continue to use one hundred grand’s worth of really shoddy Facebook advertising as “proof”, will be of no comfort if Russia is pushed to partner with China and Iran.
But, this framing of Russia as the new threat has not been the exclusive work of pro-Clinton rags.
In a San Francisco State University research article, US media reporting on the Russian Federation is examined in the period 2008-2014. It points us to the The Wall Street Journal where Putin is described, by the nation that brought us “WMDs in Iraq”, as a master of disinformation. It traces peaks in anti-Russian stories. Progressive critiques begin, just as Romney’s antique critique begins to fade. In 2012, we see them emerge with Pussy Riot, a performance group now largely represented by Maria Alyokhina, a person who affirms “Western democracy” as publicly and as frequently as Joe Biden. They continue in 2013 with critiques of Russia’s laws on homosexuality, despite the existence of near-identical legislation in many US states at the time.
Plus ça change. The charge against Russia is fundamentally the same whether made by fans of Pussy Riot or old Cold War generals: it’s a “revisionist” nation that threatens Our Great Democracy. Even as Trump himself threatens Russia, he is still perceived — as is anyone we wish to discredit, including journalist Glenn Greenwald and WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange — as intimately linked with the place.
To be candid, I do understand the great urge of “progressive” US journalists to eliminate Trump. Yet, they do this at the cost of greater surveillance, military spending and censorship of a dominant medium like Facebook. If they fancy a more reliable method of getting the guy on collusion with foreign powers, they could review those under-reported revelations in the Mueller investigation about Trump’s freelancing son-in-law and his dealings in Israel. Just a thought.
I find it peculiar that an article discussing concerns about Putin’s Russia fails to mention the Crimea, the Ukraine, the downing of Malaysian Airlines 17, the political assassinations including Litivinenko in London in 2006.
What exactly did you expect Helen to say? The Crimea returned to Russia following an overwhelming free vote by its inhabitants, restoring the pre-1954 position. As to the Ukraine generally, should Helen mention the American financed and backed coup of February 2014; the failure of Ukraine to abide by the terms of the Minsk Accord; the civil war its is waging on the Russian speaking inhabitants of eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region; or the fascist nature of the present regime whose president, Poroshenko, enjoys an average of 5-7% popular support?. MH17 is an unresolved crime, largely because the Americans refuse to release the satellite data other than to the Dutch Inquiry on the condition it was kept secret. There is zero evidence of Russian involvement. As to Litvinenko, you might like to acquaint yourself with the facts there also, although judging by your comment you and the facts make off bedfellows.
There is something known as the “illusory truth effect”, a glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth. Facts don’t actually matter. Repeat lies again and again and again, and some people will come to believe them.
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/dont-believe-lies-just-people-repeat/
I reckon you have missed something here Helen. Trump has a lot of Russian money behind him and talks big. But look again. trump has basically vacated middle-east policy. His Israel approach (a one state solution that sees Jared Kushner’s family developing more West Bank colonies) has alienated everyone. His blind support of the Saudis who are certainly the biggest terrorist funders’ not Iran and everything else means Russia has stepped in. Nuclear power for Egypt, deals with Syria and maybe Jordan. Increasing closeness to Turkey. Putin must be laughing into his vodka and caviar.
His Israel approach has alienated everyone except the extreme right-wing Israeli government and the huge evangelical network supporting every move Trump makes in the Middle East in the hope it brings the Rapture closer.
They genuinely believe these are the end times, the second (or third, I can’t remember) Temple will be built and they’re on a fast-track to heaven while the rest of deal with the Apocalypse.
It’s almost a retread of the ‘Vietnam victory’ meme that went around around, and around, in the swamp.
As Louie da Fly lamented, “when you’re on a good thing, stick to it”.
US democracy is fuct – if that wasn’t obvious at Bush’s “hanging chat” election, look what they’re wearing now – an ensemble designed by a drunk bonobo?
I wonder what sort of “interest rates” the Russians could charge to bail Trump out of bankrupcy.
Watching “Putin’s Revenge” was surreal : what’s gone on – not least the superciliousness of someone at the “DNC(?)” who wouldn’t check the bona fides of someone in the CIA (up the road) trying to warn them of what was happening – dismissing the “deep throat” off the cuff of their omnipotence.
Just who is “fit to govern the US and lead the free world”?
Who does have clean/honest broker hands when it comes to “international diplomacy” in this “War on Hypocrisy” (ask East Timor). They’re as bad as each other, learning from each other, getting jealous as they get behind in this one-up-manship for influence.
As if Putin has been doing things the US doesn’t/wouldn’t?
Outrage over “Putin invades Georgia etc” but “Iraq” was different?
Not to mention what the US used Cuba for; or Chile; Saddam while he was of use to Big Oil – or their present day “Venezuela Brewery”? ….. “Whitlam”?
An avalanche of bad PR to derail the Clinton Pullman, tossed up at critical points of the campaign? By “contrast” WTF does Rupert use his FUX News (embedded in, at the disposal of the Iraq invasion forces, to edit PR) snow machine for :- Rupert’s “Wall Street Journal where Putin is described, by the nation that brought us “WMDs in Iraq”, as a master of disinformation” – how politically disengenuous and cant can they get?
As if the US hasn’t taken too many liberties in using it’s might to ensure supply to US commerce – at cost to other countries.
Can “Trump’s word” (let alone “strategies”) on anything be taken with anything other than a dose of salts? …. He “loves” WikiLeaks – while it serves his ends – ’til it bites him? “Never spoken to Putin … after telling the world he had met him and finding out what a great guy he is”?
Mattis reaffirming Russia as an “enemy”, just when the Mueller enquiry starts to get closer to the presidency? Perhaps the shrewdest political play we’ve seen from the Trump camp so far?
To interpret this as MSM fuelling war, is well, just a tad stretchy, don’t you think?
Now leftist media has joined the right also in wanting to assert that all this anti Trump stuff is simply Democrat driven conspiracy? Or is this just fake news, a la Clinton paedophile stories.
Seriously, how do you people stimulate your fantasies, can I get some?