{"id":87849,"date":"2017-03-06T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=87849"},"modified":"2017-03-06T12:09:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T12:09:12","slug":"the-new-yorkers-big-cover-story-reveals-five-uncomfortable-truths-about-u-s-and-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/03\/the-new-yorkers-big-cover-story-reveals-five-uncomfortable-truths-about-u-s-and-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Yorker\u2019s Big Cover Story Reveals Five Uncomfortable Truths About U.S. and Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Russian soldiers march along Red Square during a Victory Day parade May 9, 2013.
Photo: Ivan Sekretarev\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

28 Feb 2017 – The New Yorker<\/em> is aggressively touting its 13,000-word cover story<\/a> on Russia and Trump that was bylined by three writers, including the magazine\u2019s editor-in-chief, David Remnick. Beginning with its cover image<\/a> menacingly featuring Putin, Trump and the magazine\u2019s title in Cyrillic letters, along with its lead cartoon dystopically depicting\u00a0a\u00a0UFO-like Red Square\u00a0hovering over and phallically invading\u00a0the White House, a large bulk of the article is devoted to what has now become\u00a0standard \u2013 and very profitable \u2013 fare among East Coast news magazines: feeding Democrats\u00a0the often-xenophobic, hysterical Russia-phobia\u00a0for which they have a\u00a0seemingly insatiable craving. Democratic media outlets have thus predictably cheered this opus<\/a>\u00a0for exposing\u00a0\u201cRussian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s influence on the presidential election.\u201d<\/p>\n

But featured\u00a0within the article are several interesting, uncomfortable, and often-overlooked facts about Putin, Trump and Democrats. Given that these points are made here by a liberal media organ that is\u00a0vehemently anti-Trump, within an article dispensing what\u00a0has become the conventional Democratic wisdom\u00a0on Russia, it is well worth highlighting them:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Obama and Clinton have radically different views on Russia.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    A major irony in the Democrats\u2019 current obsession with depicting\u00a0Putin as the world\u2019s Grave Threat \u2013 and equating efforts to forge better relations with Moscow as some type of treason \u2013 is that it was Barack Obama who spent eight years accommodating<\/a> the Russian leader and scorning\u00a0the idea that Russia\u00a0should be confronted and challenged. Indeed, Obama \u2013 after<\/em> Russia annexed Crimea \u2013 rejected bipartisan demands<\/a> to arm anti-Russian factions in Ukraine, and actively sought a partnership with Putin<\/a> to bomb Syria. And, of course, in 2012 \u2013 years after<\/em> Russia invaded Georgia and numerous domestic dissidents and journalists were imprisoned or killed \u2013 the Obama-led Democrats mercilessly mocked<\/a> Mitt Romney as an obsolete, ignorant Cold War relic<\/a> for his arguments about the threat posed by the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

    Clinton, however, had a much different view of all this. She was often critical of Obama\u2019s refusal<\/a> to pursue aggression and belligerence in his foreign policy, particularly in Syria, where she and her closest allies wanted to impose a no-fly zone, be more active in facilitating regime change, and risk confrontation with Russia there. The New Yorker article describes\u00a0the plight of Evelyn Farkas, the Obama Pentagon\u2019s senior Russia advisor who became extremely frustrated by Obama\u2019s refusal to stand up to Putin over Ukraine, but was so relieved to learn that Clinton, as President, would do so:<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    The Russian experts heralded by the article also feared that\u00a0Clinton \u2013 in contrast to Obama \u2013 was so eager for escalated U.S. military action in Syria to remove Assad that a military conflict\u00a0with Russia\u00a0was a real possibility:<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s impossible to overstate how serious of a risk this was. Recall that one of Clinton\u2019s most vocal surrogates<\/a>, former acting CIA chief Michael Morell, explicitly said \u2013 in a Dr-Strangelove-level creepy video<\/a> \u2013 that he wanted to kill not only Iranians and Syrians but also Russians in Syria:<\/p>\n

    httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-Ivt2NmbyGg<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s a reason that those who were so eager for U.S. military intervention\u00a0in both Syria and Ukraine were so passionately supportive of Clinton. They knew there was a high likelihood that she would do what Obama refused to do: risk war with Russia in pursuit of these foreign policy goals.<\/p>\n

    One can, of course, side with the Clinton wing on the ground that\u00a0the U.S. has been too soft on Russia, but what should not be suppressed \u2013 and what the New Yorker article makes clear \u2013 is that the hawkish\u00a0views on Russia now dominant (even obligatory) in the Democratic Party were exactly what Obama resisted up until the last day that he left office.<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s why people like John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, along with various neocon organs<\/a>, relentlessly attacked Obama<\/a> on the ground that he was too accommodating of\u00a0Putin in Syria, Ukraine and beyond. The post-election Democratic Party orthodoxy on Russia has deliberately obscured the fact that the leading accommodationist of Putin was named Barack Obama, and in that, he had a radically different approach than Clinton advocated.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The risk of a new Cold War is very real and very dangerous.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The most astonishing aspect of the post-election discourse on Russia is how little attention is paid to the risks of fueling a new Cold War, let alone of military confrontation between the two nuclear-armed powers. A different New Yorker article in December<\/a>, by Eric Schlosser, described how many times the two countries came quite close to nuclear annihilation in the past, and how easy it is now to trigger a nuclear exchange merely\u00a0by miscommunication or misperception, let alone active belligerence:<\/p>\n

      Today, the odds of a nuclear war being started by mistake are low\u2014and yet the risk is growing, as the United States and Russia drift toward a new cold war. . . .\u00a0The harsh rhetoric on both sides increases the danger of miscalculations and mistakes, as do other factors. Close encounters between the military aircraft of the United States and Russia have become routine, creating the potential for an unintended conflict.<\/p>\n

      Constantly ratcheting up aggressive rhetoric and tension between Washington and Moscow is not a game. And yet it\u2019s one that establishment Democrats \u2013 and their new allies in the war-loving wing of the GOP \u2013 are playing with reckless abandon, and with little to no apparent concern about the risks. They have re-created a climate in the U.S. where a desire for better relations with\u00a0Russia triggers suspicions about one\u2019s loyalties.<\/p>\n

      The New Yorker article is rife with warnings about how close the two countries are to returning to full-blown Cold War animosity, with all the costs and horrors the prior one entailed. This harrowing passage\u00a0is typical:<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

      Some old foreign policy hands in the Clinton circle believe the U.S. and Russia are\u00a0already<\/em> in a second Cold War, and are angry that Trump is not doing enough to win it (and, even though they are loath to say it, they believed the same about Obama):<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

      There are, as usual, numerous highly influential factions in Washington that would stand to benefit enormously from the resurrection of the Cold War. They\u2019re the same groups that benefitted so much the first time around: weapons manufacturers, the think tanks they fund, the public\/private axis of the Pentagon and intelligence community, etc. And the people who exert the greatest influence over U.S. discourse continue to be the spokespeople for those very interests. When all of that is combined with the Democratic Party\u2019s massive self-interest in inflating\u00a0the Russia threat \u2013 it gives them a way to explain away their crushing 2016 defeat \u2013\u00a0it is completely unsurprising that the orthodoxy on Russia has become hawkish and pro-confrontation.<\/p>\n

      One can debate whose fault it is that the two nations are so close to re-starting the Cold War. A primary obligation of Good Patriotism is to insist that it\u2019s always the other side\u2019s fault. But for those who would like to hear the other side of this equation, as a tonic to the singular message of the U.S. Patriotic Media, here\u2019s Noam Chomsky speaking last year to German journalist Tilo Jung:<\/p>\n

      httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=h0qdbsE3Jqo<\/p>\n

      But regardless of where one wants to pin blame for these heightened tensions, the risks of heightening them further are incredibly high \u2013 one could plausibly say: incomparably high. Yet in the name of being \u201ctough\u201d on Putin, those risks are virtually never discussed, and anyone who attempts to raise them in the context of advocating better relations will almost instantly be accused of being a Kremlin stooge, or worse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. The U.S. media refuses to say\u00a0if the U.S. interferes\u00a0in Russia\u2019s domestic politics.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        U.S. media accounts often note that \u201cPutin believes\u201d that the U.S. Government has repeatedly interfered in Russia\u2019s political process. Given how often Putin publicly makes\u00a0this claim, that\u2019s hard to suppress. But what they almost never comment on is the rather significant question of whether Putin\u2019s claims are true: does the U.S., in fact, try to manipulate Russian politics the way Russia now stands accused of interfering in the U.S. election?<\/p>\n

        The New Yorker article demonstrates how steadfastly this question is ignored. Here\u2019s a classic formulation of it:<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

        So, the New Yorker notes, Putin claims Clinton\u2019s State Department supported and promoted anti-Kremlin protests during Russia\u2019s parliamentary elections, yet offers no evidence. But is that true? Did that happen? As most media outlets typically do, the New Yorker simply does not say. Here\u2019s another classic example from this genre:<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

        Is it true, as Putin claims, that\u00a0the U.S., in fact, \u201chas long funded media outlets and civil-society groups that meddle in Russian affairs\u201d? Again, the article believes it\u2019s significant enough to\u00a0note that Putin claims this, but never bothers\u00a0to tell its readers whether it is actually true, or even\u00a0if evidence exists for it.<\/p>\n

        What makes this steadfast silence so bizarre is that there\u2019s virtually no question that it\u00a0is<\/em> true. Some have noted the 1996 Time Magazine cover<\/a> boasting of how U.S. advisors helped the U.S.\u2019s preferred candidate, Boris Yeltsin, win Russia\u2019s presidency. And, of course, the U.S. has continually and repeatedly interfered in the domestic political processes, including democratic elections, of more countries than one can count.<\/p>\n

        But far more relevant, and more recent, are the very active efforts on the part of the U.S. Government to alter Russian civic society more to its liking. Many of these efforts, needless to say, are covert, but many are not. Here\u2019s the National Endowment for Democracy \u2013 funded by the U.S. Congress through the State Department \u2013 openly touting<\/a>\u00a0the dozens of Russian political groups it funds.<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

        In response to all this, one can offer\u00a0the same clich\u00e9\u00a0that is invoked when it\u2019s pointed out after a terrorist attack that the U.S. has killed countless innocent people all over the world: it doesn\u2019t matter because two wrongs don\u2019t make a right.\u00a0<\/em>That may well be true, but just as it\u2019s difficult to actually fight terrorism if one refuses to grapple with its causes or if\u00a0one\u00a0objects\u00a0only when one\u2019s own side is the victim but not the perpetrator, it\u2019s very difficult to credibly object to \u2013 let alone prevent \u2013 other countries from interfering in U.S. politics if you make no effort to object to U.S. interference in theirs.<\/p>\n

        And at the very least, U.S. journalists who discuss Putin\u2019s claims in this regard should not just summarize\u00a0those claims but report on whether they are valid. The refusal to do so is as conspicuous as it is troubling.<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. The U.S. Government still has provided no evidence of its theories about Russian hacking.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          That Putin ordered Russian hacking of the DNC\u2019s and John Podesta\u2019s emails in order to help Trump win is now such consecrated orthodoxy that\u00a0it\u2019s barely acceptable in Decent Company to question it. But that obscures, by design, the rather important fact that the U.S. Government, while repeatedly issuing new reports making these claims, has still never offered any actual evidence<\/a> for them. Even the New Yorker article, which clearly views the theory as valid, acknowledges this fact:<\/p>\n

          \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

          Recall that even hardened Putin critics and western journalists in Moscow<\/a> were aghast at how evidence-free<\/a> these government reports have been. The lack of evidence for these theories does not, of course, prove their falsity. But, given the stakes, it\u2019s certainly worth keeping in mind.<\/p>\n

          And it further underscores the reasons why no conclusions should be reached absent a structured investigation with the evidence and findings made publicly available. Anonymous claims\u00a0from\u00a0agenda-driven, disinformation-dispensing intelligence community officials are about the least reliable way to form judgments about anything, let alone the nature of the threats posed by the governments they want Americans to view as their adversaries.<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Fixating on Russia continues to be used to distract from\u00a0systemic failures of U.S. elites.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Denouncing the autocratic abuses of foreign adversaries such as Putin has long been the go-to tactic to distract attention from the failures and evils of U.S. actions \u2014 including the unpleasant fact that support for the world\u2019s worst despots\u00a0has long been, and continues to be<\/a>, a central precept of U.S. policy. Or, as then-Secretary-of-State Hillary Clinton put it in 2009<\/a> about the decades-ruling Egyptian\u00a0tyrant: \u201cI really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

            That Putin abuses the civic freedoms of Russians plainly answers none of the policy debates over Russia, given how ready and eager the U.S. is to align with the planet\u2019s worst monsters. It\u2019s instead designed to encourage Americans to fix their gaze on bad acts by people thousands of miles away in order to obfuscate the corruption of their own society and savagery by their own leaders. In several places, the New Yorker article warns against exploiting and inflating claims about Putin as a means of ignoring that the real causes of America\u2019s problems reside not in Moscow but at home:<\/p>\n

            \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

            It is true that Putin is used to avoid confronting the fact that Trump is \u201ca phenomenon of America\u2019s own making.\u201d It\u2019s also true that it\u2019s used to avoid confronting the fact that Trump is a by-product of the extraordinary and systemic failure<\/a> of the Democratic Party. As long as the Russia story enables pervasive avoidance of self-critique \u2013 one of the things humans least like to do \u2013 it will continue to resonate no matter its actual substance and value.<\/p>\n

            And this avoidance of self-examination extends to the west generally:<\/p>\n

            \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

            As Even The New Yorker Admits\u2122, the primary reason for Trump, for Brexit, and for growing right-wing \u00fcber-nationalism throughout Europe is that prevailing neoliberal policies have destroyed the economic security and future<\/a> of hundreds of millions of people, rendering them highly susceptible to scapegoating and desperate, in a nothing-to-lose sort of way, for any type of radical change, no matter how risky or harmful that change might be. But all of that gets to be ignored, all of the self-reckoning is avoided, as long we get ourselves to believe that some omnipotent foreign power is behind it all.<\/p>\n

            <\/a><\/p>\n

            Using Russia \u2013 yet again \u2013 to whitewash our own sins and systemic failures is bad enough. Let\u2019s just hope it doesn\u2019t lead the two countries back into a protracted and devastating Cold War or, worse still, direct military confrontation. With tensions rising and rhetoric becoming harsher and more manipulative, both of those outcomes are more likely than they\u2019ve been in many years.<\/p>\n

            ____________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

            \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

            Glenn Greenwald<\/a> – \u2709glenn.greenwald@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

            Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            28 Feb 2017 – The New Yorker is aggressively touting its 13,000-word cover story on Russia and Trump that was bylined by three writers, including the magazine\u2019s editor-in-chief, David Remnick. The most astonishing aspect of the discourse on Russia is how little attention is paid to the risks of fueling a new Cold War.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}