Crudity is not “diplomacy” -- Samantha Power’s uncouth outburst at UNSC

United Nations
Geneva

 “Confrontation through rhetoric” is not “conducive to mutual trust” -- world leaders to Washington

Editing, commentary by Carolyn Bennett

United Security Council considers Ukraine with several country delegations speaking to the issue: Lithuania, France, Jordan, Luxembourg, Chile, Australia, Chad, United States, Republic of Korea, Argentina, Nigeria, China, Rwanda, and the United Kingdom.

T

he crudest, most undiplomatic behavior rises from U.S. officials who hold a permanent seat (with France, United Kingdom, Russian Federation, People’s Republic of China) on the undemocratic UN Security Council and undue influence over the inordinately powerful Council and over the whole body of the United Nations.

Ukraine
highlighted

August 28, 2014, at UNSC

SAMANTHA POWER (United States)

“Russia is not listening” … Instead of heeding the demands of the international community, the Russian Federation at every step has come before the Council to say “everything but the truth”. It has “manipulated, obfuscated, and outright lied”.  It is hard for me to imagine a cruder outburst from a so-called diplomat. 

Destroyed by
U.S. "Diplomats"
U.S. Foreign Relations
Policy and Practice

Samantha Power, who seems to have worked mostly as a journalist, was born in Ireland and raised in Ireland until she was nine.  Her parents immigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1979. From 1993 to 1996, Power worked as a journalist, covering the Yugoslav Wars for U.S. News and World Report, The Boston Globe, The Economist, and The New Republic (in 2007 for Time Magazine).  In 2005 and 2006, Power worked in the office of U.S. Senator Barack Obama as a foreign policy fellow and during candidate Obama’s 2008 run for the U. S. presidency, Power was one of his senior foreign policy advisers. She resigned the position and left the Obama campaign after calling one of the other contenders for the presidency “a monster.”

UN Security Council
5 Permanent
Member States

The person she called a “monster” also has revealed herself to be crudely undiplomatic. And neither of these people should have been given positions for which they are not only unqualified and inadequately credentialed; but also are lacking in human sensibility and respect for other nations and leaders. Nevertheless Wikipedia describes Samantha Power as an “American academic, author and diplomat” now working as U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

America can do better than this; and the world, including the United States of America, deserves better. 

August 28, 2014 at UNSC

UN General Assembly
193
Member States

VITALY CHURKIN (Russian Federation)

The UN Security Council must remember, the Russian representative said, that “it was not designed to participate in guesswork or spread accusations, but rather was charged with finding a solution to the crisis.”   The proposed press statement on Ukraine’s crisis, Vitaly Churkin said, “should call for an inclusive political dialogue, while urging the international community to redouble its efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”

In his statement, Vitaly Churkin wondered out loud what U. S. advisers were doing in Ukraine and questioned “how Ukrainian security forces had acquired such advanced weaponry.” He urged the international community to send a message to Washington

‘…to stop interfering in the internal activities of sovereign States and restrain your geopolitical ambition.’

August 28, 2014 at UNSC

CRISTIÁN BARROS MELET (Chile)

South America
Argentina
Chile

The Chilean representative called on all parties to cease combat immediately, respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence; and “whoever [are] those responsible for violations of human rights and the rule of law,” bring them “to justice.” 

Cristián Barros Melet called on all parties to seek a peaceful solution through political dialogue. Refrain from carrying out activities incompatible with the United Nations Charter. And unless authorized by the Ukrainian government, withdraw all foreign troops from Ukraine.

August 28, 2014 at UNSC

MARÍA CRISTINA PERCEVAL (Argentina)

The Argentine representative also pointed to “the primary responsibility of the UN Security Council to maintain peace and security.”

María Cristina Perceval urged that “actors with the greatest influence” should “use constructive diplomacy and bring the parties to a constructive dialogue.” She urged UNSC members “to avoid confrontation through rhetoric.” 

August 28, 2014 at UNSC

WANG MIN (China)

People's Republic of China

The People’s Republic of China noted two imperatives.

All parties should make “good use of various mechanisms for dialogue” and all parties should act “in a manner that is conducive to mutual trust.”

  

August 29, 2014

RUSSIA TODAY reports

The Russian Federation’s proposed text on the Ukrainian crisis had substance but was met with hostility. The statement expressed serious concerns about the deteriorating situation in south-eastern Ukraine. It called for ‘immediate and unconditional ceasefire’ and the start of a dialogue ‘based on the Geneva Declaration of 17 April 2014 and the Joint Berlin Declaration of July 2, 2014’. It also called attention to the need to ‘multiply efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to the population of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine.’ However, under a frivolous pretext, the Russian delegation statement calling for a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine was blocked at the UNSC. Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin reportedly tells Itar-Tass:

Russian Federation

‘The Russian delegation’s proposal on declaration of a ceasefire was blocked under a frivolous pretext … The Security Council as a result of destructive efforts of a number of its members was unable to play its role in resolving the Ukrainian crisis.’

The Russians repeatedly drew attention to the casualties resulting from continued violence. More than 2,000 people reportedly have died in this conflict and the casualties are rising “exponentially,” Churkin said. But the fallout does not stop there: as is happening across the Middle East and so across the Mediterranean, homelessness, displacement, refugees are rising. “Russia,” the RT report says, “is on the receiving end of the crisis.” In addition to feeding and caring for Ukrainian military personnel, Russia is “handling over 814,000 refugees.”

Commonwealth of
Independent States
(CIS)

Appealing as brethren and neighbors, Vitaly Churkin reportedly says to Oleksandr Pavlichenko, Ukraine’s deputy representative to the United Nations, “Unlike Western governments, ‘you and I know our region’ and understand the ‘close relations’ between the two countries.’” Churkin went on to reflect that

any Western advisers who pushed Ukraine into demanding that separatists lay down their weapons ‘either did not understand what they were doing or they were just provocateurs seeking to completely destabilize the situation in Ukraine and to spite Russia.’

T

he American response, however, continued in the character of deliberate ignorance, insult, condescension, lecturing; fueling conflict by driving divisions among people and states, supplying and supporting lethal weaponry,  personnel and hostile forces; and expanding sanctions warfare against peoples and nations right across eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, with ricochet, negative consequences, right round the world. The practice and policy of U. S. foreign relations in the face of the world is boorish, criminally inept, and unconscionable.

U.S. Foreign Relations
Model
Violence
Hostility

Believing that one nation is right in whatever it does or says, believing that its leaders and/or other officials are all-knowing or know what is best for the world is lunacy. When large numbers of people, whether national leaders, populaces, or masses accept such lunacy -- we create and sustain a dangerous state of world and domestic affairs wherein no nation or people are safe or free. 

Sources and notes

GUARANTEE FRAMEWORK FOR UKRAINE: "Both sides must do their bit", http://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/EN/Reiseberichte/2014/2014-08-23-merkel-kiew_en.html;jsessionid=7546BB2C1DAC5AC3EE3D4856A6473AD2.s4t2

Security Council, SC/11541, Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York, Security Council, 7253rd Meeting (PM): SENIOR OFFICIAL WARNS SECURITY COUNCIL OF DANGEROUS ESCALATION IN UKRAINE, CITING ‘DEEPLY ALARMING REPORTS OF RUSSIAN MILITARY INVOLVEMENT’ -- Members Urge Parties to Seek Diplomatic Solutions, August 28, 2014,  

The representative of the Russian Federation said everyone knew there were Russian volunteers in eastern Ukraine; no one was hiding that.  He urged other countries also to be transparent, questioning what United States advisers were doing in Ukraine and how Ukrainian security forces had acquired such advanced weaponry.

Speaking on August 28, 2014, were representatives of Lithuania, France, Jordan, Luxembourg, Chile, Australia, Chad, United States, Republic of Korea, Argentina, Nigeria, China, Rwanda, and the United Kingdom.

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2014/sc11541.doc.htm

Samantha Power, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Power

“Russia-suggested statement on Ukraine ceasefire blocked at UNSC under ‘frivolous pretext’,” published time: August 29, 2014 02:12 ; edited time: August 29, 2014 02:50 Get short URL

http://rt.com/news/183512-security-council-ukraine-russia/

“Russia Say West Doesn’t Understand Its ‘Close Relations’ With Ukraine,” by Anna Dolgov, August 29, 2014 13:15 Last edited 13:16, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-say-west-doesn-t-understand-its-close-relations-with-ukraine-anna-dolgov/506123.html

Also:

Obama Says Russia’s ‘Invasion’ of Ukraine Not a Shift,” http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-say-west-doesn-t-understand-its-close-relations-with-ukraine-anna-dolgov/506123.html

“Corridor: Putin calls on Ukraine militia to let out surrounded Kiev troops,” published time: August 28, 2014 21:21, edited time: August 29, 2014 07:29, http://rt.com/news/183520-ukraine-russia-putin-militia/

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Bennis, Avnery discuss historical context, credibility, talking with perceived enemies

United States, Western countries must cease decade’s old-style relations with Middle East

Editing, brief commentary by Carolyn Bennett

U.S. journalist, activist, and political commentator Phyllis Bennis is Director of New Internationalism at the Institute for Policy Studies.  The New Internationalism project “works to challenge U.S. domination of the UN and to help democratize and empower the global organization,” according to its website. It works primarily on Middle East and United Nations issues with key areas of interest including U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Instrumentally, the NI project focuses on “education and activism to change the failed and failing U.S. policies and retool those policies to meet the goals of peace with justice” [http://www.ips-dc.org/projects/new-internationalism/]

Today in light of the U.S. Executive Government’s resumption of overt violent aggression in Iraq and again cloaking unprovoked violence in “humanitarianism” and false mandate to protect, Phyllis Bennis talked with Democracy Now.

Phyllis Bennis

Killing them as they feed them

“The notion that there is going to be the need for airstrikes to protect the few dozen U.S. diplomats and a couple of hundred military people in Erbil,” Phyllis Bennis said, “is widely understood as a legal feint (a ruse, trick, maneuver, hoax, hoodwink)  away from the reality.”

In making such a statement, the U.S. Executive undertakes a military operation without the consent of the co-equal U.S. legislative branch of government. In this amped up aggression against a sovereign nation, the U.S. president ignores the expressed view of the American people at large and the constitutional responsibility of public officials who are supposed to represent the American people at large.

The U.S. president has also in this move to return to war against the people of Iraq bypassed the 192 nations comprising the United Nations. Before this latest move by the U.S. president, Bennis said, the United Nations “had offered the Iraqi government technical help to carry out real humanitarian airlifts to the people stuck on the Sinjar Mountain.”

Echoes of sinister priors

The U.S. act of pretending to help people, dropping food packages while killing them, has a sinister history, she said.  This last time this occurred was November 2001 in Afghanistan; Afghan refugees were fleeing the U.S. bombing of the cities. And U.S. operatives, military personnel simultaneously dropped food packs (Meals Ready to Eat or MREs) “wrapped in strong, bright yellow plastic” as they were also dropping “cluster bombs that also happened to be made with bright yellow plastic of exactly the same color.” Bennis said “no one knows how many children, in particular, were killed running to what they thought were food packages that turned out to be cluster bombs.”

Whose life Humanitarian hoax exposed

Afghanistan

Common denominator massacre: As the White House reenters violent aggression against the Iraqi people, the U.S. arms Israel in massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.

The U.S. president’s language, “that there are innocent people facing violations on a massive scale,” Phyllis Bennis said, “describes the situation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and yet, rather than providing humanitarian aid [to the people of Gaza] and demanding that Israel open the gates of Gaza, that it open the border crossings, the United States instead is sending more weapons and more money to buy more weapons and more ammunition for those Israeli attacks.”

Deliberate Compounding: crises created by war are worsened by more war. Crises created by U.S. violence are worsened by more U.S. violence. This is not only immoral and insensible, it is criminal, unconscionably so.   

Back in Iraq, the situation on the ground, the misery perpetrated endlessly against the people – the 2003 war never ended -- was created, manufactured, exacerbated by one after another U.S. official in high office and their partners in crime.

The Islamic State (IS) also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) the U.S. claims to be protecting whomever from, Bennis said, “is a small operation of somewhere around 10,000 fighters … well armed with U.S.-supplied equipment that they have picked up all over Iraq.” 

Part of the reason the group seems so strong, she said, “is that they are backed by military support from former generals, former strategists, former leaders of the Baathist army in Iraq who lost their jobs, lost their positions, in many cases lost their ability to protect their families at the time of the 2003 U.S. invasion; and have been sort of waiting for an opportunity to challenge the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.” What now exists in Iraq, Bennis concludes, is “an ugly kind of sectarianism that was put in place by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003” -- all of which “can be traced back to that [invasion].”

Must Talk cannot be ignored

“I was a member of a terrorist organization when I was 15 years old,” Uri Avnery explained on Democracy Now today.  “I believe,” he said that “I understand the psychology of young people who join organizations which are called terrorists by their enemies, but which themselves think of themselves as freedom fighters.

“Hamas thinks it’s fighting for the freedom of Palestine. They are deeply convinced of this, and therefore they are fighting. And everybody must admit that they are fighting very well, because what you have here during the last month is a guerrilla organization of [roughly] … 10,000 fighters, fighting against one of four biggest and strongest armies in the world.

“It’s not an even fight yet they are standing there—they are still standing there after more than a month.…”

Palestine

Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement Uri Avnery was born in Beckum, Germany, as Helmut Ostermann of a German Jewish family that in 1933, after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, emigrated to “Mandatory Palestine”. Thirty-two years later, he created a political party called HaOlam HaZeh – Koah Hadash, and in the 1965 Israeli election won a seat in the Knesset. In late 1975, Avnery was among the founders of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. After the 1977 election, he served in the legislature as a member of the Left Camp of Israel. He was also involved with the Progressive List for Peace, “a left-wing political party in Israel formed from an alliance of both Arab and Jewish left-wing activists.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Avnery]

On Democracy Now today, Uri Avneri reflected that the situation today between Hamas and Israel is similar to the situation with Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization

Uri Avnery

Before his death on November 11, 2004, Yasser Arafat, who had spent his lifetime fighting for Palestinian self-determination, was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and leader of the Fatah political party and former paramilitary group, which he founded in 1959.  Background reports on the decade’s long crisis in Palestine show one of the most severe PLO cross-border raids extending to March 11, 1978, when a force of nearly a dozen Fatah fighters landed their boats near a major coastal road connecting the city of Haifa with Tel Aviv-Yafo. There they hijacked a bus and sprayed gunfire inside and at passing vehicles. Thirty-seven civilians died. Israeli Defense Forces then launched Operation Litani aimed at taking control of Southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. On June 6, 1982, the Lebanon war began when Israel again invaded this country for the purpose of attacking the Palestine Liberation Organization. An estimated 1,000 to 8,000 civilians died and the Israeli army laid siege to Beirut. In 1985 Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat narrowly survived an Israeli assassination attempt when Israeli Air Force F-15s participating in “Operation Wooden Leg” bombed his headquarters in Tunisia. Seventy-three people died. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Lebanese_conflict; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat]

“One of the basic problems at this moment,” Uri Avnery said, “is that Israelis and Hamas do not talk to each other.” Currently Egypt siding with Israel against Hamas is also “appearing as a negotiator, as a mediator, an honest broker," which is as "ridiculous [as] the American mediation was ridiculous. America is a very, very, very close ally of Israel,” Avnery noted. The U.S. president “repeats like a parrot the most basic Israeli propaganda, and so does [the U.S. Secretary of State]. So we don’t have somebody who can mediate and who’s being trusted by both sides.

Hamas went to the recent ceasefire negotiations in Cairo “full of apprehension, full of distrust towards Egypt.”

For eight years the people of Gaza have been suffering under a blockade, meaning that “all the borders are closed, including the sea border and you cannot get in anything except by the permission of Israel; and you cannot get anything out at all. There is no export from the Gaza area.… The Palestinians, Hamas cannot and will not agree to a real ceasefire, a long-lasting ceasefire, if there is a blockade on the Gaza Strip. This is a basic, local problem.”

Hamas cannot be ignored, Avnery said. People abroad and in Israel have completely distorted what Hamas is. But Hamas is neither “militia” nor “military organization.” It is “a Palestinian political party which, in the last Palestinian elections, supervised by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter,” won by a majority vote: “Majority of the Palestinian people, including the Gaza Strip, voted for Hamas.”

But “when a Palestinian government was set up by Hamas, it was destroyed by Israel and the United States and Europe. It was brought down. It was then that Hamas took over power in the Gaza Strip by force, but it took power after it won a big majority in free elections in the Gaza Strip. So it’s much more complicated than just a fight between Israel and a military or terrorist or whatever-you-want-to-call-it organization.”

The simple solution Avnery sees to ending the suffering and violence is conversation. He said, “When people are firing on each other and trying to kill each other—indeed, killing each other—the best solution is that they start to talk with each other.

If the Israelis and the Palestinians would sit together opposite each other at one table and thresh out their real problems, trying to understand, be able to understand each other, the whole thing would look very differently.

Indicating that he has spoken many times with many Hamas leaders and found them to be people with whom he does not necessarily agree but with whom he can talk, he says, 

You cannot wish Hamas away. You can do to Hamas whatever you want. You can kill all the 10,000 fighters of Hamas but Hamas will remain because Hamas is an ideology and Hamas is a political party accepted by the Palestinian people. In the end, he said, “after all the killing and after all this terrible destruction…, we will have to talk with Hamas.

Sources and notes

“As U.S. Airstrikes in Iraq Begin, Will Military Intervention Escalate Growing Crisis? August 8, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/8/as_us_air_strikes_in_iraq

“Uri Avnery on Gaza Crisis, His Time in a Zionist "Terrorist" Group & Becoming a Peace Activist,” August 8, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/8/uri_avnery_on_gaza_crisis_his

Sinjar Mountain also Shengar/Shengal Mountains: a single ridge of mountains inhabited by Yazidis located in Nineveh Governorate in northwestern Iraq. It is situated near a city of the same name (Sinjar). Reportedly in August 2014, “an estimated 40,000 Yazidis fled to the mountains” after attacks on the city of Sinjar “by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinjar_Mountains]

Yazidi is a religious sect found primarily in the districts of Mosul, Iraq; Diyarbakır, Tur.; Aleppo, Syria; Armenia and the Caucasus region; and in parts of Iran; the religion is reportedly a fusion or combination “of Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian, and Islāmic elements.” [Britannica]

Also Wikipedia and Institute for Policy Studies   

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Deliberately disastrous U.S. Anti-Russia Rhetoric

Concerns about American recklessness in talk and actions
Editing by Carolyn Bennett

One voice does not make for truth or understanding but for a tyranny of the few; and of the masses a learned ignorance, a deliberate, oblivious, dangerous ignorance.

This morning I has listening to one of the “oldies” radio stations in my geographical area and had finally had enough from a relatively new (and inappropriate) addition to the station’s music (non-music) lineup, the demonizing pejorative propagandistic commentary of Tom Brokaw; and had to ask the station to ditch the gentlemen. For me, today’s commentary was right over the top in its bashing of the Russian Federation’s head of state Vladimir Putin, calling him what American irresponsible pundits and flacks in the past and present have called leaders such as Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Muammar al- Qaddafi and others ─ “Strongman.” Having framed his subject disparagingly, Brokaw was off on the usual corporate media/government rant. My feedback to “Oldies Rochester” dot com suggested that

Whether or not the actions or styles of leadership of other heads of state are acceptable to us (or expedient in the moment), whether or not we like certain leaders is irrelevant.  

We Americans have no moral or legal standing for condemning any other nations and peoples; and even if we did, this kind of demonizing (immature, deliberately crude) behavior dirties relations among peoples and nations, including the USA.

Then I came across like thinkers. I am not alone in my concerns about the quality and character of U.S. relations with the world; and related to that, the accuracy and unbiased nature of information Americans receive and their depth of knowledge and understanding of other countries and peoples and our connections with them.

Earlier this year during the Winter Games in Sochi, journalist Peter Lavelle was speaking on RT’s Op-Edge program. This is some of what he said: “The level of journalistic malpractice committed against Russia blinds Western electorates, poisons public opinion, and emboldens the reckless political class.… Cheap shots, lazy reporting and maniacal commentary are a form of entertainment served up by Western mainstream media.  

… After the incessant demonization Russia gets from mainstream media, it is quite remarkable that the Kremlin continues to work closely with the West on issues that impact geopolitical stability ─ Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, nuclear proliferation, terrorist threats, food security, and the narcotics trade. 

Western publics rarely, if ever, learn about these kinds cooperation from their media. This is truly regrettable.

A few days ago, in  light of U.S. threats and bashing surrounding the Ukrainian conflict, author and commentator Stephen Lendman continued to raise concerns about the character of U.S. foreign relations, citing the recklessness in U.S. rhetoric. “Reckless comments heighten tensions,” Lendman wrote. “They do so irresponsibly. Rhetoric risks becoming policy…. Great conflicts start this way.… Containing Russia has been the longstanding policy, reflecting U.S. hegemonic ambitions.…   

“In January, Pentagon officials raised concerns about Russian ground-launched cruise missile tests [but they] are silent about their own naked aggression,” which has been endless ─ “killing millions” of people ─ in multiple theaters in the post-9/11 period. “Russia,” Lendman says, “is a powerful force for peace … up against a belligerent monster … headquartered in Washington.…” Its priorities: “Eliminating a major rival [Russia]. Marginalizing, weakening, isolating, and co-opting [Russia].Though “Escalated tensions risk belligerent East/West confrontation, Lendman writes,  

Whenever Washington wages war or plans one, media scoundrels march in lockstep. They regurgitate official propaganda ad nauseam, substituting lies for truth. 

[Reckless rhetoric] is relentless. It persists daily. Big Lies drown out truth.

Sources and notes 

“Journalistic malpractice & the dangers of Russia-bashing,” February 9, 2014, during an earlier period of Western Russia bashing, during the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi, Op-Edge, http://rt.com/op-edge/western-media-russia-bashing-293/

  

United States-born and educated Peter J. Lavelle has lived in Eastern Europe and Russia for more than 25 years, has worked as a lecturer at the University of Warsaw, a market researcher for Colgate-Palmolive, and an investment analyst for brokerage firms, including Russia’s Alfa-Bank. He is journalist and host of CrossTalk, presented by the English-language channel RT (Russia Today) and has hosted RT's programs IMHO and In Context and a monthly business program called “On the Money.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lavelle

 “Reckless Russia Bashing Persists” by Stephen Lendman, April 5, 2014, http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2014/04/05/reckless-russia-bashing-persists

Stephen Lendman is a writer, syndicated columnist, activist, and broadcaster. Since 2007, he has hosted “a progressive radio show” at The Progressive Radio News Hour on The Progressive Radio Network. Lendman writes for MoneyNewsNow.com and VeteransToday.com and is author of Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity and How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War, http://www.veteranstoday.com/author/lendman/

Clear Channel Communications dominates what we hear over “public” airwaves.  Wikipedia notes 448 stations outside the Top 100 DMA (designated market area) markets plus another 91 stations for sale which may or may not be in the top 100 DMAs. The TV stations formerly owned by Clear Channel were sold to Providence Equity Partners, a private equity firm, on April 23, 2007, with the deal closing in late November 2007. 185 radio stations were to have been sold to GoodRadio.TV LLC until the sale fell apart over financing. and another 177 stations have been sold to other entities. Another 201 stations are up for sale. DMA:  a media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_broadcast_stations_owned_by_Clear_Channel

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Decades’ hostility, squandered opportunity: U.S.-Russia Relations

Chronic international incidents made in USA

Editing, re-reporting, brief comment by 

Carolyn Bennett

The Russian expert and professor emeritus with New York and Princeton universities, Stephen F. Cohen, is reported saying that Washington’s ‘Feckless policy elite and an uncritical media establishment’ are culpable in the deterioration of U.S.-Russia relations and these nations' headlong plunge “into a new Cold War.” And what is happening started long before “911” and a whistleblower named Snowden. This is some of Professor Cohen’s analysis.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT (hostility)

Since the end of the Soviet Union, 22 years ago, Stephen Cohen says, the United States under one after leader in Washington has “lost several opportunities to create a meaningful cooperative relationship between Washington and Moscow (the United States and the Russian Federation).

William Jefferson Clinton - Barack Hussein Obama

“Although the U.S. political-media establishment routinely blames (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” Cohen says, “the movement toward Cold War ─ instead of partnership with post-Soviet Russia ─ began almost a decade before (Putin) came to the Kremlin.” The regression started “in the 1990s … under the Clinton administration, whose tenure “initiated the three basic components of what has remained Washington’s Russia policy, from George W. Bush to Obama:

…expanding NATO (now including missile defense installations) to Russia’s borders;

…‘selective cooperation,’ which has meant concessions by Moscow without meaningful U.S. reciprocity; and

…interference, in the name of ‘democracy promotion,’ in Russia’s domestic politics

“For twenty years, this Cold War approach has had overwhelming bipartisan support among the U.S. political elite and mainstream media.”

Congress passes
Magnitsky Act

CURRENT (ongoing hostility)

In late 2012 through the spring of 2013 came enactment of an anti-Russia act.

Congress and the current president laid into law the “Magnitsky Act” banning a list of Russians from the United States; and Russia responds with its list of banned Americans, both actions signaling a return, the verge of, or a new Cold War.

Cohen said that although Congress is not itself “russophobic,” its bill was provoked by U.S. “russophobic forces.” The Congress is “just uninformed,” he said:

It knows almost nothing about Russia. Most members of Congress have no understanding of international affairs or national security.

 

If this is true, it is a deliberate ignorance. With all the resources at its disposal, there is no excuse for America to have an “uninformed” Congress. 

C

ohen says U.S.-Russian relations after enactment of “Magnitsky” were further strained with Washington’s and Moscow’s published lists of people banned from entering their countries.

The Obama administration in April 2013 published a list of 18 individuals affected by the Act:

Artyom Kuznetsov, a tax investigator for the Moscow division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs	Pavel Karpov, a senior investigator for the Moscow division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Oleg F. Silchenko, a senior investigator for the Ministry of Internal Affairs	Olga Stepanova, head of Moscow Tax Office No. 28
Yelena Stashina, Tverskoy District Court judge who prolonged Magnitsky's detention	Andrey Pechegin, deputy head of the investigation supervision division of the general prosecutor's office
Aleksey Droganov	Yelena Khimina
	Dmitriy Komnov
Aleksey Krivoruchko	Oleg Logunov
Sergei G. Podoprigorov	Ivan Pavlovitch Prokopenko
Dmitri M. Tolchinskiy	Svetlana Ukhnalyova
Natalya V. Vinogradova	Kazbek Dukuzov, Chechen acquitted of the murder of Paul Klebnikov
Lecha Bogatyrov, implicated by Austrian authorities as the murderer of Umar Israilov

U.S. President signs
Magnitsky Act

Russian Federation
President Vladimir Putin

After the Act became law, the Russian government denied Americans’ adoption of Russian children, issued a list of U.S. officials prohibited from entering Russia, and posthumously convicted Magnitsky as guilty.  On December 19, 2012, the State Duma (Russian legislature) voted 400 to 4 to ban the international adoption of Russian children into the United States. The bill was unofficially named after Dmitri Yakovlev (Chase Harrison), a Russian toddler who died in 2008 of heat stroke after being neglect by his adoptive American father. In later actions, Russia introduced a law to prevent U.S. citizens from working with political NGOs in Russia and another law, later abandoned, to prevent any foreigner from speaking on state television if they discredited the Russian state.

On April 13, 2013, Russia released a list naming 18 Americans banned from entering the Russian Federation over their alleged human rights violations, as a direct response to the Magnitsky list. The people banned from Russia are:

U.S. officials involved in legalizing torture and indefinite detention of prisoners (The Guantanamo List):	·         David Addington, Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney (2005–2009)
·         John Yoo, Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice (2001–2003)	·         Geoffrey D. Miller, retired U.S. Army Major General, commandant of Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), the organization that runs the Guantanamo Bay detention camps (2002–2003)
·         Jeffrey Harbeson, U.S. Navy officer, commandant of JTF-GTMO (2010–2012)

The Russians also banned several U.S. officials involved in the prosecution and trial of Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout and drug smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko, both serving prison time in the United States:

·                     Jed Rakoff	·                     Senior U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York
·                     Preet Bharara	·                     US Attorney for the Southern District of New York
·                     Michael J. Garcia	·                     former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York
·                     Brendan R. McGuire	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Anjan S. Sahni	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Christian R. Everdell	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Jenna Minicucci Dabbs	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Christopher L. Lavigne	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Michael Max Rosensaft	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Louis J. Milione	·                     Special Agent US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
·                     Sam Gaye	·                     Senior Special Agent US DEA
·                     Robert F. Zachariasiewicz	·                     Special Agent US DEA
·                     Derek S. Odney	·                     Special Agent US DEA
·                     Gregory A. Coleman	·                     Special Agent US Federal Bureau of Investigation

Cohen calls “Magnitsky”  “a serious blow to U.S.-Russia relations.” Worsening an “already bad political atmosphere in Washington,” the Act now institutionalizes “a kind of a prejudicial approach to Russia that’s going to continue; it won’t be possible to end the Magnitsky Act.”

Choice of the
Corrupt and
Inept

Neglect
Made in USA

And any attempts at rapprochement have been rebuffed by Washington. One opportunity, Cohen observes, began with the tragedy of the recent bombing in Boston “when it was clear that we (the United States) needed a lot of cooperation in counter terrorism between Moscow and Washington.” Another missed opportunity, he says, was “the Syrian civil war, or whatever it is, spun out of control, … the worst crisis in the Middle East in many years; and while it appeared that Washington and Moscow were ready to try and do something about that,” they didn’t; “and then came Snowden, … clearly a setback and (a test of leadership) for both President Putin and President Obama.” 

Neglect
Made in USA

Thanks to a “Feckless policy elite and an uncritical media establishment,” Stephen Cohen says, U.S.-Russian relations are deteriorating and these two powerful nations “are plunging into a new Cold War.”

I

n public affairs foreign and domestic the United States led by a corrupt, entrenched and inept cabal continues to cause regression and serious breakdown. What a waste.

Result

Cohen was talking about the expanding U.S. surveillance state, some of which has been exposed by Snowden, when he said Americans must raise and debate some serious questions, and not be stymied in this imperative by a rogue government.

Are we Americans prepared to give up all freedoms fought for ─ for 200 years ─ and allow the government to commit possibly illegal surveillance?

Result

Should we make a trade-off between our fears and our privacy?

Should we in the post-911 era allow our fears to wage endless wars, make commonplace the intolerable and the lawless; and so relinquish the possibility and promise bequeathed to the people of the United States of America?

Sources and notes

“‘Authoritarian regime’ in the Russian media vs. ‘democratic’ U.S. mainstream media in the context of the new Cold War” (Stephen F. Cohen commentary first published in The Nation on January 16, 2013), January 23, 2013, http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_01_23/Authoritarian-regime-in-the-Russian-media-vs-democratic-US-mainstream-media-in-the-context-of-the-new-Cold-War/

“How Obama can avert another Cold War - Stephen F. Cohen,” February 19, 2013, http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_19/How-Obama-can-avert-another-Cold-War-Stephen-F-Cohen/

“‘Obama can’t afford a fair trial for Snowden’ - Stephen Cohen” (Op-Edge), July 19, 2013 [Snowden issue a test of leadership ability for Putin and Obama …:  New York University Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies Stephen Cohen (AFP Photo / Dmitry Kostyukov)]

http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/snowden-case-us-russia-307/

http://rt.com/op-edge/snowden-asylum-us-russia-315/

“Magnitsky Act the result of ‘know-nothing Congress and lack of leadership from White House’” (Op-Edge), Published time: April 14, 2013, http://rt.com/op-edge/magnitsky-lists-stephen-cohen-828/

Relations between Russia and the United States, already marred by “disputes over missile defense, the Middle East and Russia’s internal politics,” have become more strained after the United States passed the Magnitsky Act … and Russia replied with a law prohibiting Americans from adopting Russian orphans ─  Stephen F. Cohen

Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_01_21/Political-media-establishment-culpable-for-strained-US-Russia-relations-Cohen/

Stephen F. Cohen is an expert on Russia and professor emeritus of New York University and Princeton University.

Magnitsky

In 2009, lawyer and auditor Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison after investigating fraud involving Russian tax officials.

In the United States, the Magnitsky Act (formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012) originated in a bill sponsored by Maryland Democrat, Senator Ben Cardin; its intention: “to punish Russian officials who were thought to be responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky by prohibiting their entrance to the United States and use of their banking system.” It evidenced mounting tensions between the United States and Russia. The U.S. Congress passed the bill in November–December 2012 and U.S. President Barack Obama signed it into law on December 14, 2012.

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