A different take on Russia

[ish mailian]

> My point is, of course, that for many people across the West regime change
> suddenly stopped being an international crime and became good practice once
> Obama and, more importantly, Clinton entered office. Many people who call
> themselves liberals or progressives and rightfully condemn those earlier
> US/CIA sponsored coups, not to mention the Iraq War, torture and Guantanamo,  wholeheartedly supported and still support the "transition of power"
> brokered (Obama's words) by the US in Ukraine.

Maybe we are all realists now. It's uncomfortable to hope that Henry
Kissinger may educate Trump and that the high moral road not taken,
made muddied and impassable by the crimes of Kissinger in Vietnam and
elsewhere, and by the crimes of every president since, though it
remain closed indefinitely, will one day be travelled and make all the
difference we hope for. Hope can be a dangerous deception. The road
we've taken, the one we find ourselves on has no moral footing, but
devils can strike deals as well an angels and realists can see through
the mud to improved stability and security.

>
> (At first I thought that these people just didn't have enough information,
> but now I realize that I have been wrong. They view Russia as the enemy,
> facts be damned.)


There's lots of truth in that I suspect. The misinformation has been
blinding. And Putin is a thug, a bad actor, a killer, ruthless.  Obama
is a good man as presidents go.  Still, US policy has been more the
cause than any nostalgic ambitions of Putin.


>
> The Maidan coup was not in any significant way different to Guatemala, Iran,
> Chile etc. It is a continuation of the same old imperialist power politics
> -- with the added frisson of doing it right at Russia's border.

Disagree. To lump these together is bad history and analysis. as you
not, though, the most significant difference is location.

>
> Trump is right about one thing only: He wants de-escalation of tensions with
> Russia. And for this, and much less for his misogyny or his racism or his
> corporate agenda, he is attacked by the bipartisan War Establishment and the
> deep state.
>
> The liberal establishment or Clintonite wing of the Democratic Party is now
> openly on the side of warmongers John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Cheney
> protégé Victoria Nuland (not to mention Ukrainian neo-Nazis yet again) and
> of proven liars like Brennan and Clapper  -- all of them members of the
> bipartisan War Party executing the wishes of the MIC ("my funding, funding,
> ahhh more, more").
>
> If this isn't reason enough for a long, hard look in the mirror, I don't
> know what is.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l