Last Wednesday, a former adviser to bill and Hillary Clinton Paul Begala (Paul Begala) went out of their usual image a timid centrist and acted CNN bellicose statement.
“We were exposed to attacks by hostile foreign powers, — he said. — We need to discuss how many sanctions we need to impose on Russia and whether we should deal with the KGB.”
This statement begali is the latest in a list of statements by prominent politicians and experts who claim that we are (or should be) at war with Russia, a nuclear power.
Former Chairman of the National Committee of the Democratic party Donna brazile (Donna Brazile) wrote this week via Twitter that “the Communists dictate the terms of discussion” (and, not bothering to remove error). Her words are another odd example of what seems a great desire to reignite the cold war, experienced Washington political circles (another example was Running, wants to deal with the long-defunct KGB).
James Clapper (James Clapper), who said this spring that Russians are “genetically inclined to, to attract, to infiltrate, to benefit” also called to mind the days of Sovietology, when the Russian were portrayed as the villains, passionless handles, cold as their ice-covered homeland. CNN correspondent Michael Weiss (Michael Weiss), who had thrown a shadow of suspicion on people who have Russian wives or girlfriends — is another recent unpleasant examples.
For journalists like me who have Russian roots either work or live in Russia, a new “Red menace” is the continuing hysteria. Many journalists and veterans writing about Russia, which might in the past disagreed on other issues, today was in a state of total bewilderment about the increasingly aggressive rhetoric.
Many of us were initially critics of Putin and now find themselves in an awkward position, because we have to convince Americans to move away from the brink, or at least not to remain on the warpath when it comes to interaction with the Putin regime.
In history there are many things about what is glossed over in the desire to restore Russia’s role as Nemesis.
For instance, we interfered in their elections even before the hacking computer networks of the National Committee of the Democratic party. Russian is particularly annoying, because we supposedly taught them moral principles of democracy. We even made a Hollywood film on this subject — “the Project is Yeltsin” (Spinning Boris), which starred Jeff Goldblum (Jeff Goldblum) and Anthony Lapaglia (Anthony LaPaglia)!
After Boris Yeltsin in 1996 was elected for a second term, Time magazine published the full malice of the main article “the Yankees!” (Yanks To the Rescue!) three American advisers aimed (in Russia), so they helped “alcohol” to the authoritarian leader Yeltsin to develop the campaign strategy. Imagine Putin sending to work in the White house special envoys to help to coordinate the campaign of trump, and you can guess how it was done in Russia.
The former head of Yeltsin’s administration Sergei Filatov denies that these three councilors did for Yeltsin something valuable. But even if Filatov and right, US intervention in the 1990-ies it was still big.
First of all, conducted under Yeltsin campaign for privatization, which is largely coordinated by the Americans, contributed to the conclusion of the obscure “deal with the devil”, which allowed to finally ensure the victory of Yeltsin in the elections.
In fact, Yeltsin agreed to privatize the best and most valuable enterprises in Russian industry, placing them in the hands of a few “their” people (we now call them oligarchs) in exchange for their all kinds of financial and media support in the fight 1996 for the presidency against the gaining popularity of the Communist Gennady Zyuganov. For their sympathy and support of the Vladimir Potanin, Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky received a fortune, and then they funded the reelection campaign of Yeltsin.
To what extent we have engaged in this ugly transaction, we did not know. But the Americans certainly contributed to the onset of the era of the oligarchs, to provide Russia assistance in conducting its “wrong” of privatization. While in some emigre circles met Americans who believed that by creating frames of the super-rich Russian, we wanted to create a public class that will be initially motivated to not allow a resurgence of communism.
It is possible that this averted a return to communism, but it has indirectly accelerated the spiral of banditry and the transition to oligarchy.
The West also helped Yeltsin during the election campaign that gave the IMF loan of $ 10.2 billion dollars, which turned out to be almost completely match the cost of terrible and stupid invasion of Yeltsin in Chechnya (Yeltsin was criticized for the financial crisis caused by the war). The newspaper Le Monde called timely mega-credit “indirect vote in favor of the candidacy of Yeltsin.”
Most Americans do not understand that Putin’s regime — at least partly — was a reaction to such intervention of the West.
The Yeltsin regime, in which, incidentally, is also very often occurred killings of journalists and other human rights violations, many believed the pseudo-puppet state, beholden to the West.
On the other hand, Putin’s regime could boast that, although Putin was the bandit, he, at least, was his own, the Russian mobster.
You can argue about how truly successful Putin has suspended which began under Yeltsin, the outflow of Russian capital abroad. But the legend that he is, at least, tried to keep Russian wealth in Russia, is the main reason for its initial popularity.
In addition, the Russian kind of the opposite about its “aggression” in Ukraine and in the Crimea. It is connected with the story in America know and understand a few.
To the question about the origins of the current Russian-American disputes former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman (Melvin Goodman), author of such wonderful books as “the Whistleblower of the CIA” (Whistleblower in the CIA) and “intelligence Failure” (Failure of Intelligence), spoke about the deal, which in 1990 signed the US Secretary of state James Baker (James Baker) and the Minister of foreign Affairs of the USSR Eduard Shevardnadze.
They made a mutually beneficial agreement on the principle of “quid Pro quo”, according to which the Soviet Union would not oppose German unification, if the Americans promise that the (NATO) “a centimeter” do not move to the East beyond Eastern Germany, and will not invade the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union.
Subsequently, Goodman interviewed both of them, and they confirmed key details of the transaction. “They both used the word “move,” he says. — According to Russian, we have violated the Treaty.”
Russia believes that the United States violated the terms of the contract waiver “promotion” to the East, seeking to join NATO to the Baltic States, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Georgia and even Ukraine.
The fact that the United States accused Russia’s adventures in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, Moscow seems absurd, however, she only sees what NATO is moving closer to its borders.
I’m not saying that the Russians are invading Crimea or Eastern Ukraine, did the right thing. But it is easy to understand why Russians don’t like that America is trying to “tighten” borders (with Russia) of the state under the “umbrella” of NATO. Or why she gets mad when Americans conduct military exercises in countries such as Latvia. Imagine, for example, how would react here in the US, if the Russians, promising to abide by the principles of the Monroe doctrine, conducted landing exercises on the Peninsula of California.
As noted by Goodman and others, the failure to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union is probably the biggest failure in intelligence work in our history. Although Ronald Reagan and his inner circle have politicized the intelligence services and exaggerated the role of the Soviet Union as powerful and monolithic force, in fact, the Soviet Union was crumbling state of the third world, gone mad from unbearable problems in the economy and in infrastructure.
Constantly making mistakes and taking disintegrating “Potemkin Empire” Russian growing threat, we have missed many opportunities to establish more simple, safe and less costly relationship.
Now the situation is not quite the same, but similar. Putin’s Russia, like the Soviet Union, of course, the same global ambitions. But today, the goal of the “game” is not so much geopolitics or territory, but (and, to a much greater extent) when “hot” money. There is evidence that the Russian attempt to break through and get access to the trading and political elite, but in most cases the main route of penetration is financial.
If the efforts of Russia was really a trump, we are likely to find that it was not associated exclusively with trump. Rather, it was just one of the “backsight” point large-scale comprehensive strategy designed to curry favor, to curry favor and establish contacts with representatives of the American political class.
However, the magnitude of these attempts, apparently, is much more limited than we are told. Regardless of whether Russia hacked into the servers of the National Committee of the Democratic party or not, it still remains a relatively weak country that does not have all the necessary capabilities to exert influence on a country like the United States. The more that she still suffers from the same serious internal problems in the field of economy and infrastructure. Putin’s ability to hold political power in the country is also not so indisputable, as we’re told by our experts and politicians.
One plan of action to trigger in other industrialized countries the chaos by planting/distributing corruption and political turmoil (which, in the opinion of many members of our intelligence community, and is seeking Russian intelligence), revealing itself. This strategy is weak and unstable States of the third world, seeking to find a cheap way to stay in the game (and to strengthen its position) against the more powerful industrial rivals. Hysteria around Russia as the country which pose a significant threat, the truth is, just fits into this strategy.
But the Russians still have nuclear weapons, so we need to act very carefully to prevent excessive tightening of the rhetoric — especially a President, what we have now.
As all these concerns about the fact that trump is a “Manchurian candidate” seeking to destroy America from the inside, it is much more likely a catastrophic denouement will be that our political establishment are pushing “not quite adequate” trump to the present military conflict as evidence that he is not a puppet and “puppet”.
One day it almost happened when trump fired missiles base in Syria, where the Russian troops, probably in order to pay off scandal”, Raahat” which last week was just a disaster. This case proved that when trump’s the wrong time to beat the drum of war is when he feels vulnerable due to the “Russian scandal”. Obviously with it happening now.
The incitement of anti-Russian hysteria in a time when the White house, in whose hands is the nuclear button is a person, not thinking before something to make, very dangerous. We should try to turn down the heat and settle down while you still can. Especially that Russian, probably, and this time not as strong as we believe.
