COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY STEPHEN COHEN IN RUSSIA
INSIDER
Cold War 2.0 More
Dangerous Than Original - Stephen Cohen Podcast
Today’s
American-Russian confrontation is developing in unprecedented ways—and the US
political-media establishment seems not to care
Stephen Cohen, as always, brings a well-informed and very
focused intelligence to his subject.
He is so very right in these points, and the dangers they
collectively represent should deeply concern us all.
I do think there's more than a suggestion of America's
unelected government at work here. It ain’t just politicians.
That, too, should deeply concern us all.
The CIA and its ally, the Pentagon, before Kennedy's
assassination played all kinds of dirty little tricks to defeat
American-Russian rapprochement.
After all, the CIA, using pilot Gary Powers and the
then-secret U-2 spy plane, sabotaged Eisenhower’s 1960 Soviet summit and effort
to establish better American-Soviet relations. Such CIA efforts are always done
in a fashion so that they can plausibly be interpreted in another fashion, as
with the U-2 being an effort to provide the President the very latest
intelligence for his talks.
In Kennedy’s case, they failed, but the very fact that they even
tried, actually going against some direct orders from the President was
chilling to those who understood.
Today, both these agencies are immensely more powerful than
they were in the early 1960s. They are larger, better funded, and even less
accountable than they were. And, the political atmosphere in which they operate
is truly poisonous with American politicians seemingly blind to the dangerous consequences
of their careless words, as those of Hillary Clinton since her election defeat.
Importantly, America has no strong figure like John Kennedy
to stand in the way of these powerful agencies. Trump has proven himself all
bluster and ranting, someone who was actually cowered by such frivolous provocations
as the infamous Russia dossier, not a serious opponent.
Trump comes after eight years of Obama, who despite his
boyish smile and seeming liberality, gave the CIA and the Pentagon everything
they wanted. Eight years of bombing, terror, and coups. The eight years of
Cheney-Rumsfeld – the pathetic Bush being only a timid and not-very-intelligent
figurehead – also gave the CIA and Pentagon everything they wanted.
So, there’s been a very long period of time during which
these agencies have increased their capacities, freedom-of-operation, and sheer
arrogance. At the same time, and perhaps it is not merely a coincidence, the
political atmosphere in America has degenerated badly.
Instead of a Kennedy, today there is a blustery, now
seen-as-cowardly, Trump, who actually told the CIA that it knows best whom to
kill in America’s extrajudicial killing program by drone. Obama at least went
through the pretense of signing off on “kill orders” put on his desk.
Trump also pretty well gave the Pentagon a free hand in Afghanistan,
a pointless war that has accomplished nothing for 15 years.
And, despite confidential understandings with Russia,
clearly elements of CIA and/or the Pentagon are actively at work in Syria
carrying out serious provocations.
We have the story in today’s Russia Insider of a CIA plan,
which failed, to assassinate Greek Premier Karamanlis in 2008.
A dramatic recent book has revealed the CIA as the source
for the assassination of several Western leaders, including Swedish Premier Olof
Palme, a kind of assassination at an entirely different level than the ones we
have long known the psychopaths at the CIA are engaged in. This goes far beyond
just interfering in countries’ elections, something again the CIA has always
done.
