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12/21/16, "American Cold Warriors Want to Fight Russia, Not Terrorism," The Nation, by Stephen F. Cohen
"As terrorists strike again, from Ankara and Berlin to Syria, the US political-media establishment is determined to disqualify Putin as a security partner for President-elect Trump."
"Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen argues that the real enemies of US national security are the American senators (McCain, Graham and their bipartisan allies in Congress) and mainstream media (now spearheaded by The New York Times and seconded by The Washington Post) waging a campaign against Trump’s proposed cooperation with Russia, presumably first and foremost against terrorists in Syria and elsewhere. In this connection, Cohen makes the following points:
§ Cold warriors insist, as they have for years, that “Putin’s Russia” represents the “No. 1 existential threat to America.” (Russia seems not to appear on the short list of threats that Trump’s transition team has given to the Department of Defense.) Cold warriors promote their myopic priority by adding two new allegations to their longstanding vilification of Putin: that he intervened in America’s presidential election to tilt the scale in Trump’s favor; and that he has committed war crimes in Syria, particularly in Aleppo. Cohen explains there are—at least at this time—no facts or logic to support either allegation, only an obsessive desire to disqualify Putin, potentially the most valuable US national-security partner, as such a partner. In this reckless pursuit, the enemies of détente engage in neo-McCarthyite tactics intended to silence pro-détente Americans, branding them “lackeys of the Kremlin,” and seek to cripple Trump as a foreign-policy president even before he takes office and thus US national security itself. (Their demand for retaliation against Russia for its purported “cyber-attack” on the presidential election is viewed in Moscow as a threat approaching a declaration of war.)
§ More generally, American cold warriors blame Putin for the failure of their polices around the world, from their support for “moderate rebels” against Syria’s President Assad to the rise of anti–status quo electorates in Europe, the UK, and the United States itself. In fact, Putin, whom President Obama pledged “to isolate” two years ago, has less to do with these failures than do the follies of US foreign policies, including regime-change wars and “liberal globalization,” whose economic and cultural dimensions have increasingly alienated voters in many countries.
As a result, Putin has emerged for millions of people abroad, without much trying, as a symbol of resistance to the “American hegemon” that, they believe, has undermined their economies, offended their traditional values, and, in the Middle East, brought war to their countries. Still more, to the extent that the image of American democracy abroad has been damaged by the 2016 presidential election, the fault lies not in the Kremlin but in America itself.
§ Above all, demonizing Putin has become a bipartisan excuse for not rethinking bipartisan US foreign policy. Vilifying President-elect Trump as a “Kremlin puppet,” or “Kremlin poodle,” as the Times’s Nicholas Kristof labeled the new president, has become an additional excuse. Meanwhile, the real threats to US and international security continue to grow."
"Stephen F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation."
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Endless war machine funded by US taxpayers has a name: "Washington:"
"The first of what Washington promises will be back-to-back nine-month rotations in the "foreseeable future." Beginning in February, U.S. military units will spread out across Poland, the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Romania and Germany."...
1/6/17, "US Tanks, Equipment Arrive for NATO Exercises in Eastern Europe," Reuters, Bremerhaven, Germany, via voanews.com
(Question for Reuters: Is the US inaugurating a person named "Washington" on 1/20/17? Reuters says "Washington promises" many months of US taxpayer funded troops and heavy weapons across Europe and on Russian border. No one on 1/6/17 is authorized to "promise" confiscation of US taxpayer dollars for endless military actions in foreign lands after 1/20/17. US taxpayers are no longer global slaves. PS: Save the Fake News rap about Ukraine war.)
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Added: As is the case with all neocons, McCain and Graham have never once been right. By their own words the Libya regime change they promoted was a massive failure. They've never even apologized.
""Ultimately, our intervention in Libya will be judged a success or failure based not on the collapse of the Kadafi regime, but on the political order that emerges in its place," the senators said."
Aug. 21, 2011, "John McCain, Lindsey Graham weigh in on Libya," LA Times, Kim Geiger
"The fall of the Kadafi regime is a victory for Libya, the Middle East and the world, said U.S. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who had been strong advocates for U.S. military intervention in the months-long conflict.
"Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Kadafi," the senators said in a statement released late Sunday night. "But we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower."
The senators said the U.S. "must lead the international community to provide the support that our Libyan friends need."
"Ultimately, our intervention in Libya will be judged a success or failure based not on the collapse of the Kadafi regime, but on the political order that emerges in its place," the senators said.
"Today marks a big step forward for the Libyan people towards freedom and democracy. As they continue on this journey, America must continue to stand with them.""
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/21/news/la-pn-mccain-graham-on-libya-20110821
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Added:
In April 2011, McCain is given hero's welcome in Benghazi, Libya, where he brags that people should visit "free" Benghazi to see how great it is thanks to his intervention (meaning US taxpayer funded bombing): "Mr McCain called on critics of intervention to tour Benghazi to see a 'powerful and hopeful example of what a free Libya can be.'" Obviously, nothing good happened in Libya, least of all in Benghazi. Neocons exist only via their access to endless US taxpayer dollars and have never been right or "heroic" about anything. They create permanent misery and suffering wherever they go. They're basically a money laundering operation. Today Libya is home to countless terrorist groups. It's also a transit route for African "refugees" flooding to Europe. How embarrassing for US taxpayers. Take a "tour" of "free" Benghazi.
4/22/2011, "'Let's get this thing over with,' says McCain as he calls for more help for rebels in Libya," Daily Mail
The former Republican presidential candidate toured the rebel stronghold of Benghazi on Friday.
He received a hero's welcome on his tour as rebel forces, locked in a deadly stand-off with forces loyal to strongman Moammar Gaddafi, gained ground in central Misrata.
Mr McCain said the drones would increase NATO's capability but not enough to make up a shortfall needed to break a 'significant degree of stalemate.'...
Mr. McCain called on critics of intervention to tour Benghazi to see a 'powerful and hopeful example of what a free Libya can be.'
People waved American flags as a crowd of about 100 Libyans greeted McCain, the leading Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee."...
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More about neocons:
6/20/2014, "Being a Neocon Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry," Foreign Policy, Stephen M. Walt
"The neoconservative-liberal alliance in effect re-legitimates the neoconservative world view, and makes their continued enthusiasm for U.S.-led wars look "normal.""
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9/7/2015, "How Neocons Destabilized Europe" by Robert Parry, consortiumnews.com
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"The refugee chaos that is now pushing deep into Europe...started with the cavalier ambitions of American neocons and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks who planned to remake the Middle East and other parts of the world through “regime change.”
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Instead of the promised wonders of “democracy promotion” and “human rights,” what these “anti-realists” have accomplished is to spread death, destruction and destabilization across the Middle East and parts of Africa and now into Ukraine and the heart of Europe. Yet, since these neocon forces still control the Official Narrative, their explanations get top billing – such as that there hasn’t been enough “regime change.”"...
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"(Hillary) Clinton may claim she has lots of foreign policy experience, but but the hard truth is that much of her experience has involved making grievous mistakes and bloody miscalculations....Clinton’s ultimate vulnerability on Libya is that she was a principal author of another disastrous “regime change” that has spread chaos not only across the Middle East and North Africa but into Europe, where the entire European Union project, a major post-World War II accomplishment, is now in danger." ...
April 1, 2016, “Cleaning Up Hillary’s Libya Mess,” Robert Parry, Consortium News
"Hillary Clinton’s signature project as Secretary of State – the “regime change” in Libya – is now sliding from the tragic to the tragicomic as her successors in the Obama administration adopt increasingly desperate strategies for imposing some kind of order on the once-prosperous North African country torn by civil war since Clinton pushed for the overthrow and murder of longtime Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi in (Oct. 20) 2011.
The problem that Clinton did much to create has grown more dangerous since Islamic State terrorists have gained a foothold in Sirte and begun their characteristic beheading of “infidels” as well as their plotting for terror attacks in nearby Europe.
There is also desperation among some Obama administration officials because the worsening Libyan fiasco threatens to undermine not only President Barack Obama’s legacy but Clinton’s drive for...the White House.
The continuing crisis threatens to remind...voters about Hillary Clinton’s role in sparking the chaos in 2011 when she pressured President Obama to counter a military offensive by Gaddafi against what he called Islamic terrorists operating in the east.
Though Clinton and other “liberal interventionists” around Obama insisted that the goal was simply to protect Libyans from a possible slaughter, the U.S.-backed airstrikes inside Libya quickly expanded into a “regime change” operation, slaughtering much of the Libyan army.
Clinton’s State Department email exchanges revealed that her aides saw the Libyan war as a chance to pronounce a “Clinton doctrine,” bragging about how Clinton’s clever use of “smart power” could get rid of demonized foreign leaders like Gaddafi. But the Clinton team was thwarted when President Obama seized the spotlight when Gaddafi’s government fell.
But Clinton didn’t miss a second chance to take credit on Oct. 20, 2011, after militants captured Gaddafi, sodomized him with a knife and then murdered him. Appearing on a TV interview, Clinton celebrated Gaddafi’s demise with the quip, “we came; we saw; he died.”
However, with Gaddafi and his largely secular regime out of the way, Islamic militants expanded their power over the country. Some were terrorists, just as Gaddafi had warned.
One Islamic terror group attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, killing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other American personnel, an incident that Clinton called the worst moment of her four-year tenure as Secretary of State.
As the violence spread, the United States and other Western countries abandoned their embassies in Tripoli. Once prosperous with many social services, Libya descended into the category of failed state with the Islamic State taking advantage of the power vacuum to seize control of Sirte and other territory. In one grisly incident, Islamic State militants marched Coptic Christians onto a beach and beheaded them.
Yet, on the campaign trail, Clinton continues to defend her judgment in instigating the Libyan war. She claims that Gaddafi had “American blood on his hands,” although she doesn’t spell out exactly what she’s referring to. There remain serious questions about the two primary incidents blamed on Libya in which Americans died – the 1986 La Belle bombing in Berlin and the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
But whatever Gaddafi’s guilt in that earlier era, he renounced terrorism during George W. Bush’s presidency and surrendered his unconventional military arsenal. He even assisted Bush’s “war on terror.” So, Gaddafi’s grisly fate has become a cautionary tale for what can happen to a leader who makes major security concessions to the United States.
The aftermath of the Clinton-instigated “regime change” in Libya also shows how little Clinton and other U.S. officials learned from the Iraq War disaster. Clinton has rejected any comparisons between her vote for the Iraq War in 2002 and her orchestration of the Libyan war in 2011, saying that “conflating” them is wrong....
Though her (past) Democratic rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, hasn’t highlighted her key role in the Libya fiasco, Clinton can expect a tougher approach from the Republicans if she wins the nomination. The problem with the Republicans, however, is that they have obsessed over the details of the Benghazi incident, spinning all sorts of conspiracy theories, missing the forest for the trees.
Clinton’s ultimate vulnerability on Libya is that she was a principal author of another disastrous “regime change” that has spread chaos not only across the Middle East and North Africa but into Europe, where the entire European Union project, a major post-World War II accomplishment, is now in danger.
Clinton may claim she has lots of foreign policy experience, but the hard truth is that much of her experience has involved making grievous mistakes and bloody miscalculations."
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/01/cleaning-up-hillarys-libyan-mess/
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Feb. 2015: "ISIS beheadings of Coptic Christians on Libyan beach brings Islamists to the doorstep of Europe:"
2/16/2015, "ISIS beheadings of Coptic Christians on Libyan beach brings Islamists to the doorstep of Europe," UK Independent, Lizzie Dearden
"Former Libyan PM previously warned that they would reach Mediterranean."
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"Militants in Libya had been holding the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians hostage for weeks, all laborers rounded up from the city of Sirte in December (2014) and January." Reuters image
"Militants in Libya had been holding the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians hostage for weeks, all laborers rounded up from the city of Sirte in December (2014) and January." Reuters image
"Destroyed: There were at least seven strikes in Derna in the east of the country, which has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism since dictator Libyan Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011," twitter via Mailonline
2/16/2015, "Egypt retaliates with air strikes after ISIS marches 21 Coptic Christians along a lonely Libyan beach and beheads them en masse for their faith," Mailonline, John Hall, Sara Malm
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Comment: No amount of human suffering is enough for neocons who are now entrenched throughout US institutions.
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