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As with its 40-year predecessor, the new US-Russian Cold War has characteristic features, including sharply conflicting historical memories. Some of them are absurdly inaccurate and politically dangerous. Consider a recent ramifying example.
On January 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Israel to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet (mostly Russian) army. Representatives of many other countries also attended the solemn events, including US Vice President Mike Pence, but according to the Times of Israel, Putin was “the most formidable and dominant presence.” The reason, widely acknowledged in Israel though scarcely in the United States today, is that the Soviet army, more than any other, saved the surviving Jews of Europe as it defeated Nazi Germany in route from Stalingrad to Berlin.
Ukrainians, most of them then Soviet citizens, played a large role in those historical events, both as Holocaust victims and as soldiers in the Soviet army. Nonetheless, at about the same time as the ceremonies in Israel were underway, the inveterate bipartisan anti-Russian lobby in Washington—notably at this moment Democratic Representative Adam Schiff and a predictable slew of other lawmakers and impeachment witnesses—were declaring Ukraine today’s front line against Russia’s “new aggression.” Among other things, this was not the peace with Russia promised, and indeed sought since his election, by Ukraine’s new president Volodymyr Zelensky.
At the very moment when peace between Ukraine and Russia is within reach, and with it the possibility of saving many lives, warmongering—an ugly but appropriate word—intensifies in Washington. On December 4, for example, in a formulation rarely heard since the early 1950s, a pro-impeachment witness, not known for any Russia, Ukraine, or related expertise, told Congress that the United States must make “sure that the Ukraine remains strong and on the front lines so they fight the Russians there and we don’t have to fight them here.” By January 22, this had become a warfare mantra in Congress, with Democratic Representative Jason Crow, an impeachment manager, also assuring members that America must “fight Russia over there so we don’t have to fight Russia here.” Whatever the merits of the impeachment process, its legacy, as I have warned from the outset, is likely to be an ever-worsening new Cold War and thus conceivably something even more dire.
Yet these fateful issues cannot be candidly discussed in Washington because they are widely regarded, as NBC’s Chuck Todd mindlessly characterized them, as “Russian talking points” and “disinformation.” By implication, and sometimes in direct accusations, anyone who does raise them is a “Kremlin apologist.”
Such continues to be the state of American discourse about this new and more perilous Cold War. Will any of the current Democratic presidential candidates change the discourse—or be permitted to do so by “moderators” of their debates? Or must we rely almost entirely on President Trump’s continuing, and substantially thwarted, effort to implement his campaign promise to “cooperate with Russia”?
Looking ahead, Putin has invited Trump to join him on Red Square on May 9, Russia’s “Victory Day,” a sacred commemoration of immense importance to the Kremlin and for most of Russia’s people. Certainly, President Trump should accept, if only to honor the estimated 27 million Soviet citizens who died in World War II. But here, too, will Washington politics and media discourage him from doing so?
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When I heard these words spoken it made me gag.
Same old same old warmongering.
When will the citizens of the USA get wise to all this?
Wouldn’t it be nice if Stephen Cohen was President Sanders’ Secretary of State and collaborating with VP Gabbard to de-escalate this insane state of affairs with Russia.
I’ve given up on Trump ever fulfilling his campaign pledge to cooperate with Russia. He’s so scared and intimidated by the likes of Adam Schiff, making out that he’s Putin’s poodle, that he has gone overboard in punishing Russia to prove he isn’t.
“We have to fight the Russian over here so we don’t have to fight them here,” is really rich. But it is apparently working on most dumbed down Americans.
I know. How hard is it, really, to eventually see through this? You almost have to want to be deluded to keep going along with it decade after decade.
I gagged on the rest of the article for the same reason. But I guess you shouldn’t expect Stephen Cohen to figure out that muh Russia is the muh Germany game repackaged.
Agree. I heard this simpleton say that on the news and almost gagged too.
It served to remind me that the majority of dems and rethugs are terminally stupid and need to be euthanized .
Prof Karlan, the cited congressional witness, came across as a possessed rabble-rouser!
Can anyone actually imagine the screaming & gnashing of MSM & Establishment teeth were Trump to accept a Russian invitation to honour May 9?
Ah, to get a dollar for every time these words would be used — my god I’d be a millionaire : “treason” & “traitor“.
I suspect Trump really would be impeached then….
Of course.
I think you are misreading the situation. This is all a charade…the Deep State is in control. The POTUS is a titular position within the Deep State.
For a hundred years – and certainly since the advent of nuclear weapons – it has become impossible for major powers to fight without the result being world war. For over half a century humanity managed to avoid World War Three and nuclear holocaust. But the options are running out. And no one will escape it. There is no sanctuary in the illusion: “Fight Russia over there so we don’t have to fight Russia here”.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
“Putin was “the most formidable and dominant presence.” The reason, widely acknowledged in Israel though scarcely in the United States today”
Acknowledging that will expose people to a different narrative.
How Israel – American only ally and the most reliable ally in the entire world can wok and cooperate with America’s only existential threat, a persistent and revanchist enemy ? How on earth despite Evangelical spending so many hours on anti Christ Russia-Iran combo , Israel- the God’s beloved and only country do that ?
This will raise also US awareness that you can be friends but you don’t have to agree on enemy like US deciding that Saddam was not an enemy or Iran is not . That will unravel the corrupt parasitic edifice. But Americana mind cant be allowed to progress beyond the perimeter established by talking head
In addition to attending the May 9th commemorations, Trump could improve relations by honoring Vassili Arkhipov, a senior officer aboard a Soviet sub off the Cuban coast on Oct. 27, 1962. American ships were closing in and the sub was incommunicado. Believing WWlll had begun, two of the three senior officers aboard inserted their keys to launch a nuclear tipped torpedo. Officer Arkhopov did not, likely preventing a nuclear war.
Everyone should know how close we came to WWlll.
Separating Russia from China is in US interests. China cannot go it alone and will need to open its borders to vulture Capitalism. Over a billion Chinese will be buying only US created brands.
Old joke: The only thing heard, on radio, more often than the Holocaust is the weather report.
For a man of seemingly high intelligence, I find it astonishing that Mr. Cohen buys into the “Soviet army, more than any other, saved the surviving Jews of Europe as it defeated Nazi Germany…”. The entire “surviving Jews of Europe” has long been exposed as a fraud.
Elie Wiesel was a “surviving Jew” who, along with his father, decided to leave the Auschwitz “death camp” hospital to travel with the evacuating “evil Nazi” guards rather than take their own chances on leaving or waiting for the Soviets. Why would anyone travel with the people who were allegedly responsible for their “extermination”? If a camp is evacuated, and those who stay do so voluntarily, how can there be a “liberation”?
The Wannasee Conference minutes indicate that the estimated number of Jews under German occupation was about 3.8 million out of a total of 11 million. This link uses the Nuremberg translation: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/Wannsee/wanseeminutes.html Over 4.2 million Jews have applied for “survivor” reparations.
These two examples alone, demonstrate the flimsiness of the entire narrative.
Only fools “deny” Jews weren’t mistreated or that Jews didn’t die in concentration camps. What people “deny” is that there was an “extermination” of Jews, much less a plan for exterminating them.
All I see is another play one off against the other game. The Russians are “heroes” for liberating evacuated camps, so now we want Germany, and the rest of the “winners” to up the ante so they can be the heroes again.
Well, I think we may soon find out what a vindicated Trump is made of. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “When you strike at the king you must kill him.” Well, Schiff’s shit show tried to whack Trump and struck out horribly.
Time for revenge, wouldn’t you say?
There’s no longer a reason for Trump to be “intimidated” by “pencil-neck” Schiff, if indeed he ever was (which I doubt). Given the tenor of the times, it may not be possible anymore, but I wish that Trump would have his Justice Dept. round up Schiff, Nadler, and Pelosi and arrest them all for Sedition.
I suspect it is what Lincoln, who suspended the Writ of Habeus Corpus, would have done.
I wish the American people would round up Trump and arrest him for Treason, ZioNazism, War Crimes and Pedophilia.
The exact same figure of speech was used by Trump to refer to the Iranians. I think it’s become the go-to trope to justify any war fought at a remote location.
Putin, Trump, Boris ( and throw in Bibi), on the stage together. Fitting. Like Roosevelt at Yalta. plus-one. So our greatest ally, Israel is allowed to host Putin, but not the U.S. President? In who’s interest is this? Or is it whose? Or neither or either or both?
That would be a neat trick, given that thousands of electronic, household, and industrial products are manufactured in quantity in China but no longer manufactured much, if at all, in the USA.
Separating them is in US interests because it’s the US who can’t go it alone.
Even if it wasn’t getting outmanoeuvred everywhere it turns, it has no hope of getting any further along to achieving the Global Hegemony it’s set its heart on with the combined military and economic power of Russia and China standing against it. If push ever comes to shove, the US will lose it all, and it knows it.
Russia and China will separate eventually, but not until well after the US has dropped all pretentions to sole superpowerdom.
It’s hard to guess just how many citizens are already wise to it, but the politicians, bureaucrats and the media certainly make it appear to be widely accepted. The main focus of the media is to inform us about what we think.
Please seek help before you snap and kill us all.
(((Stephen F. Cohen))) of (((The Nation))) knows perfectly well (((who)))’s calling the shots, and it’s not “Trump.”
Agree. Studying the “official history”, we realize one of the biggest defects of the human being: the capacity to be hypocritical. Deutsche, wach auf!
“Emerson said: “When you strike at the king you must kill him.”
We don’t have kings in the US, had that been the case, there would have been no impeachment —-
the revenge, if at all, should be in attending to the policy for which he was voted to advance.
If he had I would have supported him but as it now stands he was simply another neocon in wolfs clothing,which is more evident every time he opens his mouth or tweets and twitters like a bird in the cage<<<
I know Mr. Cohen is too intelligent to go on as he does here about holocaust victims. Pretending myths are true will hardly do anything to help our cause.
Mr. Cohen, simply don’t refer to an event at all if you wish not to red flag yourself.
Jews were most responsible for the event called WW II occurring. It disrespects the millions of Germans falsely accused of genocide and suffering financially for the claim everytime you play pretend here
Jews are the only ppl getting paid for a claimed raw deal. (slave trade, carpet baggers, protestant reformation , false claims about the Spanish Inquisition, the list goes on for ever)
After three years of investigation and a botched show trial Impeachment, where no defense witnesses were allowed, and Trump was not allowed to face his accuser, since the House does not believe in the 6th Amendment or the Constitution, it is far time to move beyond fake Russiagate, and its lack of evidence, and face the much more dangerous enemy of Communist China, who thanks to Clinton, Romney and our Elites, has destroyed our economy and has basically been at war with the US since at least 2000, when they were finally granted permanent free trade status with America.
I don’t know if Trump is in bed with the Chinese (surely our “semi-competent” intelligence agencies know by now) but the Clintons, Bidens and Bloomberg have been working closely with the Communists since Chinagate. Adam Schiff needs to sharpen his weapons and turn them on his fellow Democrats, as do our intelligence agencies. Schiff should be bellowing that “we need to fight the Chinese over there, or we will be fighting them over here.”
At least the fighting weather is nicer in China than in Russia, and there’s lots of money to be made in profiteering in a China War (although most of our critical military supplies are probably made there.)
We should be frank and openly acknowledge that from the beginning of the Ukraine US-manufactured coup, the one real goal and prize for Nuland and Pyatt (i.e. Pentagon-DOS) was to snatch Crimea from Russia. The US anger comes from being checkmated. Failing.
We watched in southern Europe the Soros regime change effort in Kiev over 4-5 months with an eye on Crimea. Apart from being the Russian naval base, the Russians could also see this too. Plenty of time to reinforce.
Elie Wiesel was never in a concentration camp. Nor were his sisters. He was copying a template script for crisis actors written in Yiddish. He was a propaganda operative recruited after WW 2 in France. A fake of a fake. Of course Cohen knows. We live in a make believe world.
Who are you supposed to be kidding?