- Prove to Mr. Putin that he is not 'invincible'
- Russia unnerves its neighbors
- How the United States can counter the ambitions of Russia and China
- Putin: Speak politely, but carry guns, too
- Putin's combative course
- NATO says Russian military definitely moving into Ukraine
Heuvel writes:
Comment: Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, recently cautioned Americans against intervention fatigue: "I think there is too much of 'Oh, look, this is what intervention has wrought' .โ.โ. one has to be careful about overdrawing lessons." Say what? Given the calamities wrought in Iraq, Libya and now Ukraine, one would think that a fundamental rethinking and learning of lessons is long overdue. The United States needs a sober look at the actual costs of supposed good intentions divorced from realism.Note the language: "divorced from realism", "coup", "intervention", "civil war". When was the last time you heard a mainstream Western source rightly identify the 'change in government' in Ukraine a coup? Or call the civil war anything other than an "anti-terrorist operation"? And notice that she simply said Russia annexed Crimea, without adding any of the nonsense about it being done so under military coercion. (Thought she doesn't mention that it was perfectly legal and fully democratic, that around 95% of the population voted for it to be so.)
Power's comments come as Ukraine marks the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the Maidan Square demonstrations in Kiev, surely an occasion for rethinking and changing course. One year after the United States and Europe celebrated the February coup that ousted the corrupt but constitutionally elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, liberal and neoconservative interventionists have much to answer for. Crimea has been annexed by Russia. More than 4,000 people have lost their lives in the civil war in Ukraine, with more than 9,000 wounded and nearly a million displaced. This month, the Kiev government acknowledged the de facto partition of Ukraine by announcing it was ending all funding for government services and social benefits including pensions and freezing all bank accounts in the eastern districts that are in revolt. The Ukrainian economy is near collapse with nowhere near the billions needed to rebuild it at hand. How Kiev or the cut-off eastern regions will provide heating and electricity to their beleaguered people as winter approaches remains to be seen.
Heuvel goes on to describe the conflict between the West and Russia as "a new Cold War", citing NATO expansion and aggression, the negative effect of sanctions on European states, Putin's rising popularity, and the fact that "several countries worried about the effect of sanctions on their own economies," and officials questioning the sanctions' effectiveness. She continues:
The U.S. government and the mainstream media present this calamity as a morality tale. Ukrainians demonstrated against Yanukovych because they wanted to align with the West and democracy. Putin, as portrayed by Hillary Rodham Clinton among others, is an expansionist Hitler who has trampled international law and must be made to "pay a big price" for his aggression. Isolation and escalating economic sanctions have been imposed. Next, if Senate hawks such as John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have their way, Ukraine will be provided with arms to "deter" Putin's "aggression."Finally, the Post correctly uses scare quotes! My inner "Grammar Putin" is pleased.
But this perspective distorts reality. Although there is no question that Russia has contributed to the tensions in the region, what has unfolded was predictable and preventable. As experts such as Princeton University and New York University professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen have argued, the West should have understood that an attempt to bring Ukraine into an exclusive arrangement with the E.U. would spark deep, historical divisions within the country and itself and provoke a Russian reaction. (Disclosure: Cohen and I are married.) In fact, as University of Chicago professor John J. Mearsheimer concludes in Foreign Affairs, "the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis." In the face of Russian warnings and despite agreements to the contrary, over the past two decades the United States has expanded NATO to Russia's border. The E.U. has similarly grown, seeking to incorporate Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics into its economic and political sphere. The Russians have warned repeatedly that they consider expansion of NATO a threat and have clearly drawn the line against trying to incorporate the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine.
Note: RT regularly features articles by Cohen. See also:
Recently, 91-year-old former secretary of state Henry Kissinger has seconded this counterargument and perspective on the crisis. In an interview in leading German magazine Der Spiegel, which inexplicably received little attention in the U.S. media, Kissinger argued forcefully that the annexation of Crimea "was not a move toward global conquest." He disputes Hillary Rodham Clinton's charge that Putin is like "Hitler moving into Czechoslovakia." Kissinger holds the West partially responsible for escalation and the deteriorating situation, suggesting that Europe and the United States underestimated the "special significance" of Ukraine for Russia. "It was a mistake not to realize that."So what's going on here? Are some in the Western elite starting to see that they're fighting an unwinnable fight against Putin? For a war criminal psychopath like Henry Kissinger to come out and say something that approaches being more than 50% truth, something's gotta be up. Or have Plans A (goad Russia into open military conflict) and B (bring Russia to its knees economically and try to brew up internal dissent among Russia's fifth column) failed, and the Western pathocrats are merely regrouping and coming up with Plan C?
Kissinger notes that while the West need not and should not recognize the annexation of Crimea, "nobody in the West has offered a concrete program to restore Crimea. Nobody is willing to fight over eastern Ukraine. That's a fact of life." On the other hand, Kissinger points out that Russia is a vital U.S. partner in resolving crises from Iran and Syria to the dangers of nuclear arsenals. He suggests that the West might weigh those real security concerns before more posturing and escalation over Ukraine.
It is a measure of how extreme the prevailing political-media narrative on Ukraine is that Kissinger now sounds like a dissident. He is urging prudence as opposed to the liberal-neocon interventionists. ... But before Washington further escalates the crisis there and ramps up a new Cold War, it needs to understand both the limits of our power and the horrific humanitarian costs of ignoring those limits.
... Ukraine needs to find a way to live with Russia in peace. NATO should reassure the Russians and caution the Ukrainians by announcing it will not expand to Ukraine, or for that matter, to Georgia. The E.U. should engage Putin in how to settle the crisis, doubling down on the cease-fire the Russian leader helped broker, not escalating the conflict. The hawks should stand down. The human costs are already mounting. It is utterly irresponsible to destroy a country in the name of supporting it, as is happening in Ukraine. Samantha Power has it wrong: Americans aren't tired of humanitarian intervention; they are tired of its consequences. It is time for taking a sober look at the misconceptions that got us here.
Reader Comments
I think it's reasonable to assume that some psychopaths are more intelligent than others and also pretty good at hiding it. He's probably right up the top of the totem pole on that one. Also, when it comes down to it - it's every psycho for himself. My gut feeling is that something or someone is paying him to say that.
A few years ago, he had some surprisingly sane remarks about Israel, and already there I wondered what was going on that he of all people would say something like that. (I don't remember the specifics anymore, but among other things he hinted at the idea that Israel doesn't have a future.)
That WP thing almost looks like somebody sneaked in an article that the bosses didn't notice... but hard to say what it's all about. Certainly interesting though.
Although Koehli applies this description to Kissinger, it is also entirely appropriate to apply it to the architects and implementors of US foreign policy for a couple of decades or more, including the neocon architects of PNAC, the current and two previous Presidents and VPs, all Secs of State since at least Albright, many others in various positions of responsibility in both administrations (Bolton, Rice, Power as typical examples), many at the highest levels of our military, and, last but not least, the various warmongers in Congress as exemplified by the lunatics McCain and Graham.
But yeah, it is surprising that what has normally been a gov't mouthpiece like the WaPo would slip up to this extent and publish something so contrary to the usual gov't propaganda. We can only hope that this is only the beginning and that other elements of the MSM will also, at least occasionally, present information/opinion that counters the gov't's continuing lies about damn near everything.
So true. As in any mature Pathocracy, all important positions are filled with psychopathic scumbags. And their nasty influence filters down to every aspect of the society.
It might be folly to presume that the US even has any kind of coordinated foreign policy. The State Department seems full of people with their own agendas which do not align among themselves with any common goal(s).
Good article Harrison.
Maybe the more rational elements of the msm can see the writing on the wall-the impending collapse of the Anglo-American Empire-and they're trying to save their own sorry backsides from the fallout.
Sounds like a perfect oxymoron, doesn't it?
Is Katrina vanden Heuvel an independent writer ? I don't think so. So whoever is paying her had her write that opinion piece and let people start talking on this topic so that they can gracefully close the Pandorra's box that they have opened without losing much face.
Some have realized that they are cutting the tree they are sitting on.
You may be on to something. It smelled like that to me as well. I don't trust the motives but the possible end game of leaving the Ukraine alone would be fantastic.
What happens when Putin and Lavrov are gone? The tensions that are fueled by Russophobia may set the table for for another who won't be so inclined to practice patience, who will resort to War.
Don't even think it.
At this writing, Russia has its forces spread around the world, locked and loaded in response to NATO/US diddling. If either Putin or Lavrov were to meet untimely ends there would be no question in the eyes of Eurasia as to the guilty parties. It would be a mess, for everyone.
I'm not so sure about plans A, B and C, 'cos we all know the PTB don't end up getting what they.... 'envision' half the time. Perhaps it'll end up as plan D(og poo) or plan F(ill in the blanks), at the end of the day. For them, anyway.
Which leaves the rest of us to being 'as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves'. The PTB are not going to notice this, so they aren't going to be jumping on any heads over it. This is because those who can do this become invisible to the PTB.
My personal thought is that the pressure of the mind-control machine, including influences stemming from background EM spectrum brain-fuzzing, media propaganda, environmental toxins, poor diet, bad sleep, organic portal associates, peer pressure from the converted, whispers from the predator mind, and perhaps even direct commands from psychic projector types...
All of that stuff...
It means there *is* a battle for the mind, which implies that the other side is formidable enough to warrant such an array of forces, which in turn implies that victory is not assured.
The machine slips sometimes and a ray of light can sneak through, especially if the journalist would like to believe that they, (and on a certain level perhaps genuinely ARE fighting to) hold to some sort of ethical standard; one where they are smart and savvy and fair (and balanced), and if the cohorts and workmates around them who are truly devoted to the Beast are continually decaying and wishfully thinking, then the pressure to conform is going to lapse from time to time as a simple product of atrophy. -Maybe the senior editor was on sick leave that week. Maybe the author re-connected with an old college friend whose eyes are more open. Maybe the power went off and cold showers were required and TV was unavailable... Maybe she chanced across a lucid essay on an on-line forum which struck a chord at a moment when the negative pressure was waning. Who knows?
The battle front in the war for the mind is drawn in pencil. Really thick, paper-denting pencil, but still... It's not entirely inked in place. We still get things like, "The Matrix" and "The X Files". -Out of Hollywood, of all places!
Personally, I find when trying to construct my own media forays that I can *feel* the forces playing tug-o-war in my brain and emotions, and on what may be particularly critical issues, the wind and rain storms outside and the barometrics yo-yo up and down. It can be exhausting to try to fight the current and see clearly enough to write something which helps the world and doesn't harm it. -Making that a base-line directive means there is always an engine running to help push through the fog.
And it gets easier. As knowledge accumulates, practice/experience teaches, and trusted networks grow, the muscles of the mind become stronger and more difficult to compromise. The signal grows in strength from the work of others similarly striving through the fog.
All that being said... With regard to this current shift in the Washington Post, accept the good with a tip of the hat but stay prepared to jump aside in case of a bait-and-switch.
And keep pushing forward.
Consider the following from her "The Nation" bio where she is Editor and Publisher :
"She is a frequent commentator on American and international politics on ABC, MSNBC, CNN and PBS. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Foreign Policy magazine and The Boston Globe. She writes a weekly web column for The Washington Post."
Maybe that last one will now be revoked? Will be interesting to see if anything comes of this or not.
is the real deal. She is one of us. NOT a psychopath. Mr Cohen is also. It is odd that her piece made it into the horrible Wapo.. probably a fluke.