John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE TO RUSSIA INSIDER
“The 'Magnitsky Trio' (John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Ben Cardin) Pushes for War With Russia With New Sanctions
“The proposed sanctions by the Graham bill are so insane that even the Treasury department thinks they are a bad idea.’
I think in many such analyses about American-Russian strained relations an important actor is left out, and that actor is America’s strange Middle East quasi-colony, Israel.
Israel, assisted by its very powerful lobby in America, was the driving force in the set of Neocon Wars that have burned through the Middle East.
In order to have the kind of highly aggressive America represented by those wars, much in Israel's favor, effort has to be made to keep antagonisms high. And Russia is inevitably viewed as a barrier to an aggressive America, no matter how friendly Russian-Israeli relations are, and Putin does a very good job of trying to keep good relations.
But, still, while Netanyahu and his gang smile for the cameras after meetings, their deep-down drives are in conflict with Russia in some fundamental ways that cannot be made to disappear with handshakes or smiles. A highly aggressive America serves Israel in its own aggressive regional ambitions as well as in vague matters as “security,” the term likely used by its lobby in America.
Russia has her own experience with these drives in the unhappy induced-coup in Ukraine, something in which that charming Neocon from the State Department, Barbara Nuland, famous for bragging that America spent $5 billion on its Ukraine operation and also for once shouting within earshot of others, “Fuck Europe!” played an important role.
The anti-Russian crowd in Washington – very much including the Neocons, who are part and parcel of the total multi-fronted Israel Lobby in Washington, many of the Neocons holding (or having held, as Nuland did) influential government posts - won something for their cause whichever way events in Ukraine went.
They gained either a large country, hostile to Russia right on its border, one with good American connections, to harass and worry Russia, or with the outcome we see, Ukraine having made a fool of itself in falling apart through incompetence and pig-headedness, they have gained the theme of Russian aggression. While Putin’s moves were masterful and required, making the very best of a very bad situation, what has emerged still serves these nasty folks in stoking hatred of Russia, now accused of aggression, a charge strongly embraced in Washington and in American-influenced parts of Western Europe.
Lindsay Graham is about the most vocal and reactionary defender of Israel in the Congress. He might be matched by John McCain, but I’m not sure he doesn’t in fact earn top honors in his service to another country. He quite literally leaps to his feet at any mention of Israel. So, when a guy like that strongly advocates greatly increased hostility towards Russia, it should tell us something.
And I strongly suspect, given the intensity of his all efforts for Israel, that he was caught once in a Mossad "honey trap" and given to understand that very compromising photos of him existed.
You see, Graham is known as a fairly flagrant gay in Washington.
His constituents back home - conservative Southern Baptists and the like – of course, are not aware of his sexual proclivities, so pictures would make a serious threat.
This kind of thing would not at all new to Washington. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, also a closet gay and indeed a cross-dresser according to one reliable biographer, is said to have been compromised the same way by the American Mafia, something which explains his long reluctance to act against Mafia interests, allowing them to flourish while he chased after largely non-existent communists across America.
