Truth, Again

 

I have written several times in recent years about the decline of simple truth in our time. Now I am prompted to write about truth and falsehood again because the situation is leading, and has led to both war, killing, and the complete collapse of even an elementary sense of ethics in one of the major nuclear nations and in one of our two major political parties. I am referring, of course, to Putin’s attack on Ukraine, with its attendant losses of life and civilian structures, and the outright lying in public from both this puta-tive leader, and the plague of lying which has overtaken the entire Republican Party. The latter is promoted, of course, primarily by Donald Trump’s confounding control over his “base,” which demands that his most egregious lie to date about winning the 2020 presidential election—which he claims was “stolen” from him by massive Democratic party fraud—be corrected by overturning the election, evicting Biden from office, and declaring Donald Trump President. This would be remarkable even if Trump were the only one subscribing to this whopper. But he is not. Millions of his American supporters believe this self-serving crap. Still more astonishing, large numbers of Republican office-holders actually insist that it is the truth. We seem to have entered Donald’s Wonderland. 

            There was a time—and I am old enough to remember it—when such a transparent lie coming from federal office holders would have prompted outrage from voters, public shame and humiliation for the liars, and calls for their resignation. No more. In our confused and benighted time, we have members of Congress, leaders of major parties, and countless state officials willing to repeat this outrageous lie, one that early on and repeatedly has been exposed as having no merit whatsoever. With almost no one in the entire Republican party, save Liz Cheney, willing to call what it and the Jan. 6 assault on those trying to certify a fair election, actually is: an assault by a mob on the most basic elements of our democracy. The peaceful transition of power from one president to the next. The constitutional duty of every member of Congress to certify electoral votes duly submitted to it by the states for approval and verification. Instead, most Republicans, including the leadership, have cowered in fear of Trump’s base, and denigrated and excoriated the Committee trying to investigate the Jan. 6 events, claiming that the rioters were simply exercising their right to visit the Capitol, and protest. Any news, such as that emanating from the New York Times or the Washington Post suggesting otherwise, is dismissed as “fake news.”

            What Trump has done in America finds its more sinister and lethal echo in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and his invasion of Ukraine. The lies are just as preposterous: Ukraine has never been a “real” nation; the war of invasion Russia has launched is not a war, but a ‘special military operation’ to oust the Nazis seeking control there; the destruction of cities and the slaughter of civilians is actually carried out by the Ukrainians themselves to make Russia look bad. Given Putin’s more thorough control of the state apparatus (which Trump openly envies), he can also control more completely what the Russian people can see and hear. So they see peaceful scenes of Russian troops being welcomed by their Ukrainian ‘brothers’; none of the scenes of the rubble-ization of Mariupol and other Russian cities whose apartments, theaters, and infrastructure have been terror bombed to a point not seen since Nazi destruction in WWII. Any Russian who questions this “truth” is branded a traitor to the nation, and subjected  to fines, arrest, and worse. Any news that contradicts this official truth is “fake capitalist news.” And all is backed by thinly-veiled threats to use the ultimate weapon if Russia’s sacred territorial integrity should be threatened. 

            The truly astonishing thing about the perpetration of such egregious lies is that, for a sizable and not-insignificant portion of the publics in each nation, this bullshit works. Recent news articles (see NY Times, Mar. 6, 2022) have shown that Ukrainians with relatives in Russia have been unable to penetrate the beliefs of even their parents about what they have experienced: that the Russian military is waging a brutal aerial, artillery and rocket-led assault amounting to a terror attack on civilians and their living spaces meant to demoralize the population. Instead, those in Russia believe what their media says: that the Russian ‘special military operation’ is saving Ukraine from drug-addled Nazis in power there. And as Ukrainian defenses have put up stiffer and stiffer resistance, the apparently-frustrated Russian military has resorted increasingly and more ferociously to indiscriminate bombing and artillery campaigns that many have labeled war crimes. With Russian officials and news media hiding the mounting deaths of their troops which, if publicly known, might blow the whole cover. 

To be sure, Aeschylus’ line that ‘truth is the first casualty in war,’ pertains as much today as it did in ancient Greece. But the demise of truth in our time has reached another and more dangerous dimension. That is because, with the rise of internet-based social media platforms, and the ability of governments to either control those internet outlets, or ban them outright, or provide others that contradict what major media choose to report, the labeling of any contradictory evidence as “fake news” becomes easier. Or, at the least, more confusing for the average citizen. In America,  those who have been addicted to the simplistic version of politics promulgated by Fox News, seem to find such simplicity both easier to digest and more consistent with their preferred narrative of events. 

The upshot of all this fakery and subterfuge is that elementary facts, which once provided the basis for what we might call “consensus reality,” no long pertain, and can no longer be taken for granted. Where once Walter Cronkite could intone on nightly TV his mantra “And that’s the way it is,” and count on most Americans taking his word for it, now millions can find their own preposterous version of “the way it is,” and feel more righteous than those who believe mainstream “fake news.” This amounts to a serious state of affairs, and a dangerous one. Democracy depends on a rough consensus among its citizens. It depends on most of its citizens agreeing, if not to the interpretation of major events, at least agreement on what those events are. Not any more. I have talked personally to a cousin who insisted that the Q-Anon-promoted canard about Hollywood child-abuse rings was the major issue of our time—one that Donald Trump was the only person with the moral authority to address. This about a proven narcissist and pervert who once spoke on the record about grabbing women’s pussies with impunity. It is simply mind-boggling. And anything that contradicts such a person’s “facts” can be met with what I was met with: “do some research.” With such a conflict about basic facts, a democracy cannot function, cannot reach consensus about what matters and what should be legislated. The rule of law, likewise, depends on a rough consensus—that most people will agree with the fact that everyone needs to stop at a traffic light, for example, or that murder is a capital offense that demands adjudication, abiding by proof and evidence, and punishment if warranted. Or that racism and lynching are unequivocally wrong, and cannot be permitted. If a society cannot agree on such basics, it cannot function as a society. 

But in our time, we increasingly have the collusion between power and truth that promotes, too often, the condition that power can make its own truth, create its own facts. This is precisely what is happening in Ukraine at this very moment. Vladimir Putin is creating his own reality, and insisting, with the power he has assembled, that the Russian people—and more generally, the whole world—accept that reality as the truth. Russian troops are not killing civilians; his brutal invasion is not a war; the destruction of apartment buildings and other civilian infrastructure witnessed by the entire world is not his military’s doing but that of the Ukrainians themselves. Trump, likewise, though with far more resistance, can insist that he had nothing to do with inciting or planning the Jan. 6 riot at the capitol; but, in any case, that the violent attempt to stop Congressional certification was more or less justified by the theft of his “victory” in the 2020 presidential election. Or that Americans might try ingesting bleach to protect  themselves from the Covid-19 virus. And those who report on these things, or demand some accounting, are simply the victims of the large, liberal conspiracy of the “fake new” media. What’s worse is that this nonsense can be openly admitted by those with power. During the George W. Bush administration, for example, journalist Ron Suskind in 2004 attributed the phrase “reaity-based community” to a Bush aide (thought to be Karl Rove) who said, in part: 

… that guys like me (Suskind) were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” [...] “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality…” (Wikipedia, accessed 3/30/22)

 

Or, we might recall the inimitable Kellyanne Conway’s evocation of “alternative facts,” in a Meet the Press interview on Jan. 22, 2017, where she tried to defend Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s lie about attendance numbers at Trump’s inauguration. This might have been considered a joke, were the words not uttered and defended with incredible zeal. 

            What’s even more baffling is that large numbers of the population, both in Russia (where they are compelled to) and in America (where the compulsion is internal), take this idiocy for the unvarnished truth. For the way things should be. Alternative facts? We create our own reality? Have people lost all touch with what used to be called “the real world?” Apparently they have. And the sum total of this willingness of those in power to “create their own reality,” can leave millions of ordinary citizens at sea in a swamp, a miasma of uncertainty, if not outright bedlam. 

            The question is, can democracies, which depend on the consent of the governed (all governments, ultimately, must have popular consent to stay in power), still assemble sufficient majorities on which to base that consent? Or disagreement? What will persuade enough people on this planet that global warming is not only real, but has very nearly reached the point of no return? What can persuade people to turn away from propaganda meant to serve a small, wealthy elite, and commit to vetted, scientific opinion that this crisis is real? That there are, in fact, substantiated facts? That the war in Ukraine is not only an actual war but a slaughter? That autocrats like Putin and Trump are both frauds and liars?

            I have to confess, the prospects from here don’t look good. Because in truth, the truth about reality is, even regarding normal facts, not easy to discern. Where power obscures it even more, it may be impossible for the average person, who doesn’t have time to pursue and tolerate the uncertainty that increasingly dogs our pursuit of the truth, to ferret out. This is why populist leaders and their simplistic solutions appeal so broadly. For many people, perhaps a majority, anything, no matter how unfair or preposterous or brutal, can seem preferable to uncertainty. All one can say is that care is needed. Patience is needed. Ability to read and discern mere opinion from that which is based on real evidence, is needed. And a healthy skepticism about information coming from authoritarians who “make their own reality” is desperately needed. Though actual attention to those recommendations may seem unlikely, they may be all we have. 

 

Lawrence DiStasi

Some Thoughts on Anger

A Zoom group I’m in had a discussion about anger recently, and it brought up some thoughts for me. They began with the notion that not all anger is alike, or equally damaging, and may in some cases be preferable to the alternatives—especially suppression. In my experience, to be specific, with a real father and a stepfather, parental anger was handled in two very different ways. My real father, born in Italy, had a rather volatile temper. He got mad (that’s what we used to call it, never “anger” which would have seemed unnaturally formal for us) regularly, and expressed it freely with choice Italian curse words. He also got mad at us children, sometimes gave us a swat for misbehaving (though it was usually my mother who administered physical punishment), and then could often not help laughing about the whole thing shortly after. In short, the swat ended the trouble and the punishment, and that was it. 

            My stepfather, whom my mother married after my father died, was fully American, of French-Canadian descent. He typified suppression. We knew he got “mad” because of the threatening atmosphere he created, but he never expressed it. Never yelled at my brothers or sisters or me, at least not publicly. The same with my mother: he clearly got annoyed at some of what she said or did, but he never expressed it (other than obliquely) in front of others. We learned later that he was pretty hard on her in private, but none of us knew that, except perhaps by inference. What we did know was that she never crossed him, and we assumed it was out of the fear we could feel. Towards the end, she did leave him once, to live with my sisters in a house they had rented, but after a short time went back; he kept pleading that he couldn’t live without her, and that his health was failing. Even though it wasn’t, she yielded, and remained with him until her death from pancreatic cancer. A few years after that, when he had sold their CT house and moved back to Lowell, MA to live with his sister and her husband in a mobile home, the situation in that enclosed pressure cooker produced its bitter end. We read it in the newspapers: the man we had lived with for years had shot and killed his sister and her husband, and then turned the gun on himself as police closed in. I and my older three siblings were stunned. But my younger brother told us he wasn’t surprised at all: “Didn’t you know he always had a .38 caliber pistol in his safe?”  

            So: two fathers, with different styles regarding anger. One expressed it freely, verbally and sometimes with a smack, but that was it. It was over and done with. The other brooded in silence, and laid down an atmosphere of dread that went on and on. And that brooding, that suppression, finally ended with three deaths via his gun. For me, at least, the quick acting out of anger was far preferable to the quiet, brooding suppression of it that always felt as if it could—and finally did—explode. The immediate expression seemed healthier for all concerned, including for the one that gave vent to it. 

            Sigmund Freud, as I recall, had a lot to say about instinct suppression (killing anger being one of these instincts) in Civilization and its Discontents (1930). Civilization, that is, makes the expression of both the sexual instinct and the killing instinct with which all humans are equipped, unacceptable in most societies, and Freud saw that necessary suppression as dangerous. (It should be said here that the expression of rage cannot be lightly dismissed, as Jared Diamond [Guns, Germs and Steel] shows in his examination of primitive cultures, where encounters among males often lead to violent death). Such extreme suppression is toxic in the long run, Freud said, and can lead to blowouts such as wars or other conflicts that can do widespread damage. My stepfather’s case is instructive. More to the point, I years ago met a psychotherapist named Zaslow who had developed a therapy called “rage reduction” meant to treat the suppressed rage Freud wrote about. In Zaslow’s view, the suppression of rage was just as toxic, if not more so, than the suppression of sex which had been given far more attention. To treat this rage, he would encourage its expression in a controlled treatment where the patient was held firmly in the laps of eight or so helpers, so that the patient could give vent to  extreme rage without the risk of harming others or him/herself. I witnessed one or two of these sessions (they could go on for as long as eight hours in order to elicit this rage, which is so deeply repressed), and they seemed helpful. Unfortunately, a few patients did not do so well long after treatment (at least one committed suicide), and the therapy came under such intense criticism it had to be abandoned. But the point remains: the suppression of rage or anger in modern society can lead to deep psychological, physical and societal problems. 

            This brings us to the present. The alarming rise of guns in the hands of so many millions of Americans swiftly comes to mind. But guns themselves are not the real issue here. It is the anger that arises so often in mass culture, and which can, and increasingly does, result in mass gun violence, and more. The recent case of a large Black man pummeling a Chinese woman in the entrance to her New York apartment is a case in point, and it asks the question: what could possibly elicit such monstrous rage?  In my limited view, such outbursts stem largely from one main issue: the feeling on the part of most individuals that they cannot control their environment or their lives (in some cases leading to the feeling that such a life is hardly worth living). Whether most humans have ever been able to control these things is not obvious, but it certainly seems that it would have been easier to control one’s life circumstances when the group one belonged to was a village or small town where most people were known. Interpersonal problems might be addressed directly with the person or persons involved; larger problems with a local priest or local official or council. In mass culture, of course, this is no longer an option. We are forced, most often, to deal with entities that are remote, and impersonal, and often mechanical. We dial a number to solve a problem, and we get a machine-answering system. The “person,” driven by an algorithm impervious to our frustrations or our specific human needs, mindlessly goes through the options available; and if those options do not fit our situation, we are left with the ridiculous option of screaming at a machine. And even if we finally succeed in reaching a real person, the ones we get to speak to are often just as mechanical. We are left with anger and rage that literally have no outlet. So we smash the phone or kick the dog. 

In short, the whole modern world, which turns most of us into non-entities forced to deal with robots, contributes greatly to the frustration and anger we are left with (which is not to say that no other causes or incitements to anger exist. The constant need of humans to assert dominance, and the reaction to it, is certainly one.) Our lives seem increasingly meaningless in the greater realm of things, where we seem helpless to affect the majority of our world. And it now seems clear that this frustration with having no control, with being non-entities, has led in recent years to more and more Americans (and people world-wide) opting for authoritarian alternatives like Donald Trump to, if nothing else, shake up or thumb a nose at those in charge. The dangers in this case need not be enumerated. 

            And what do our helpers, psychological or spiritual, offer? Reason. Patience. We are advised to either take nonviolent action, such as writing letters to our representatives, or, more generally, consider the person(s) we are angry with, and try to have compassion for their plight. Or understand that they are not at fault; their passion is. Therefore, we should empathize, and treat them with love. All of which are nice ideals. But how effective are they in dealing with the likes of Vladimir Putin, and his mass murder of Ukrainians? Or Donald Trump and his violence-prone minions? And worse, what if such ideals help only in suppressing our rage? What results if we end up never dealing with them, but pushing them beneath our supposedly wise exterior? Will they fester and grow larger and blow along with us, making us ‘go postal’ eventually?

            I am afraid that, for me at least, there are no good answers to all this. In our wired world, we are not only exposed to more of the troubles in the world, from global horrors (such as Putin’s vicious invasion of Ukraine) to murders in the smallest hamlet, but are also increasingly removed from anything like an effective response or remedy. No places to make such a response. Our letters and posts seeming to fall on deaf ears. Our screams at the TV audible only to us and perhaps our families. Leaving us left only with the personal, self-regarding response. Is there a good way for an individual, that is, assailed constantly in every media forum by all this, and assailed by interpersonal conflict as well, to respond? 

            Perhaps what Zen practice teaches us works best. Take pains to be fully aware of how we are feeling, how our bodies and emotions are reacting, and where in the body and how strongly; and then making the decision not to act upon those powerful feelings. That is to say, pretending that we do not have strong feelings, such as anger, about what is happening in our offices or relationships or in Ukraine, pretending that we don’t have to feel any upset but can adopt feelings of  “calm” and “equanimity,” is only feeding the beast with denial. No, feelings of anger, if they occur, are better admitted, acknowledged as human, and thoroughly examined. What does not need to happen is our acting upon them. That is to say, we can feel anger without expressing that anger physically. We can hold that anger in our awareness, and be aware of each impulse to strike out. But not strike out. Eventually, we can become better aware of what triggers anger in us, see what in us feels out of control (including  whether it really is or should be in our control in the first place), and better able to manage it when it arises. Eventually, too, we may come to see more sides of each situation (including the position of the “other,” who is usually just like us) before it arises. 

            All this, to be sure, takes time, and practice. And we must admit that. We must also admit that, in the short run, instantly giving vent verbally or physically to our anger can seem much more satisfying. But in the end, we can come to see that it truly is not; that the expression of anger, pent up or not, can harm not just others, but ourselves, often leading to a greater inclination to express that anger in more and more violent ways. The spiraling results of which we can easily see, vividly appearing in our own troubled world, every single day. 

 

Lawrence DiStasi 

 

Ukraine Extortion

To hear Drumpf and his Repugnant allies tell it, the holdup of military aid to Ukraine was just a normal part of the diplomatic effort to get rid of any chance of corruption in that country. The holdup, they insist, had nothing to do with trying to get leverage on possible 2020 rival Joe Biden and/or to invalidate the Mueller investigation by blaming the 2016 election interference on a Ukraine plot. But if we look at the timeline of the aid and its eventual release on September 11, 2019, the story becomes more damning. This is very important, but most news outlets simply stay with the events closely surrounding the July 25 phone call from Trump to Ukraine President Zelensky. That misses the deep issue. 

            What’s really key is to go back and focus on when exactly, the U.S Congress authorized desperately-needed military aid of about $400 million for Ukraine. This aid was for military equipment to stave off the Russian-backed forces trying to bite off another chunk of Ukraine in its eastern province. If we look at the record, as outlined by an important article in Lawfare (10/16/19), we see this:

On Feb. 15, Congress appropriated $445.7 million to the State Department to assist Ukraine (see here, § 7046(a)(2)), which included the $141 million at issue here. In a joint explanatory statement (page 65 of Division F, for interested readers), Congress broke down the $445.7 million in funding, which included (among other initiatives) $115 million in foreign military financing; $2.9 million in military training; and $45 million in international narcotics control, law enforcement and anti-terrorism funding.

Look at that date again. Congress authorized $445.7 million on Feb. 15, 2019. Yet that aid was not released to Ukraine until September 11. This in spite of the fact that the Trump administration twice notified Congress—on February 28, 2019 and again on May 23, 2019—that it was going to release the aid. It thereafter has struggled mightily to explain why the authorized aid was withheld for so long. That’s because top officials in both the Defense Dept. and the State Dept. sent letters to Congress authorizing the release of the aid—in the first case in May certifying that Ukraine was making good progress in the fight against corruption, and in the second in June with the Pentagon announcing that a large grant was being released to Ukraine for training, equipment and advisory efforts. These notices were undergirded by a May 23 letter from John Rood, defense undersecretary for policy who wrote:

“On behalf of the secretary of defense, and in coordination with the secretary of state, I have certified that the government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purpose of decreasing corruption.” (www.militarytimes.com.)  

            So Congress had authorized the $450 million, and both the State Dept and the Pentagon had approved dispersal of the funds; but still they were not released. Now the law says that the OMB in the White House has to approve these funds and can take up to 45 days to review them.  But it is only supposed to ensure that the funding lasts for the required time and is spent appropriately. It is not supposed to alter or amend the purposes for which the money is to be spent without formally notifying the Congress in accord with procedures, and must adhere to the 45-day limit. The Trump White House most decidedly did not. In this case, in fact, the White House OMB held up the funds, not just for a few weeks, or 45 days, but for several months (until Sept 11), and then only released them under the duress of the impeachment hearings.   

            The White House, of course has several explanations (aside from the extortion of President Zelensky) for the withholding of the funds. One of them came from Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff and director of the OMB. He told leaders at State and Defense in mid-July that the president wanted the aid withheld because he was concerned about the ‘necessity’ for the aid (even though Ukraine is fighting for its very life and depends on the U.S aid to do it). Note the timing here: the order to withhold the aid came before that notorious July 25 phone call, and the president himself ordered the delay. This means that the plan to extort the president of Ukraine was already in place well before the president made his recorded demands by phone. Other evidence makes this even more telling. Ambassador William Taylor’s testimony, for one, makes clear that the aid money to Ukraine (and the promise of a meeting) had long been conditioned on their complying with President Trump’s wishes to investigate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter:

 “That was my clear understanding, security assistance money would not come until the President  [of Ukraine] committed to pursue the investigation.”

Taylor then affirmed that this demand, plus the demand to investigate the 2016 election interference by Ukraine (not Russia) met the definition of a “quid pro quo.” He also affirmed that it was Rudy Giuliani’s idea to get the Ukrainians to investigate Burisma Holdings, the company on whose board Hunter Biden served. He said the idea was to get President Zelensky to publicly announce these investigations so as to put him into a “box” that would force him to comply. Taylor’s testimony contradicted EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s earlier testimony that there was no “quid pro quo,” after which the ambassador then revised his testimony to agree that, in fact, there was a “quid pro quo.” He agreed that the pressure on Ukraine was “improper” and “insidious” and that it probably violated the law. 

            There is much more to this nefarious case, including the politically-calculated firing of veteran ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Jovanovich, but it is all coming out in public hearings. The bottom line remains: the President of the United States held up for months desperately-needed aid to a U.S. ally in order to 1) damage the election prospects of his presumptive rival, Joe Biden; and 2) to impel a bogus investigation into a supposed Ukrainian plot to affect the 2016 election, thus invalidating the hated Mueller investigation. Both of these bogus Ukraine investigations were meant to serve not the nation he is sworn to serve, but his own political (and criminal) purposes. This is a textbook definition of extortion and of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the Constitutional remedy of impeachment was written for. QED.

Lawrence DiStasi

Ukraine: The West's 'Proxy War' with Russia

The drumbeat for war coming to us about Ukraine is not good. Major U.S. figures, including John Kerry, Secretary of State, are now calling for the Obama administration to not only support the alleged Kiev government economically, but now militarily as well. In a Democracy Now piece aired on Feb. 4 (reprinted on ReaderSupportedNews.com), Emeritus Professor of Russian History Stephen Cohen affirmed what former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev said recently:

Gorbachev had it right. We’re in a new Cold War with Russia. The epicenter of the new Cold War is not in Berlin, like the last one, but it’s right on Russia’s borders, so it’s much more dangerous. You and I have talked about this since [last] February, I think. What I foresaw in February has played out, I regret to say: A political dispute in Ukraine became a Ukrainian civil war. Russia backed one side; the United States and NATO, the other. So it’s not only a new Cold War, it’s a proxy war. We’re arming Kiev. Russians are arming the eastern fighters. And I think, though I don’t want to spoil anybody’s day—I said to you in February this had the potential to become a new Cuban missile-style confrontation with the risk of war.

A new cold war with Russia. A proxy war, reminiscent of the Cuban missile crisis when the two nuclear powers came to within a hair of igniting a nuclear conflagration that could’ve destroyed half the world. If anyone doubts that, consider the facts about that “proxy war” that Oliver Stone’s recent book and documentary, The Untold History of the United States, reveals. Unknown to the United States, the Soviets had hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons already up and operating in Cuba. Most generals and U.S. officials wanted to launch quick and devastating strikes against Cuba, but Pres. Kennedy opted for a less drastic measure—imposing a naval blockade to prevent ships from delivering what it thought weren’t there yet, the nuclear-armed missiles. But the tactical nukes on Cuba, along with troops to launch them, were ready to go; so were nuclear-armed Soviet submarines in the Atlantic. On October 27, 1962, American ships were dropping depth charges on these submarines, unaware they were nuclear, and nearly disabled one, K-19. Russian sailors were gasping for lack of oxygen. The captain in charge, Savitsky, decided that the war had already begun and ordered that his nuclear missiles be launched. Some higher power intervened, however, and the fleet commander, Vasili Arkhipov, refused to approve the order, preventing the launch. Within days, Soviet premier Khrushchev had contacted President Kennedy and opened phone negotiations, whereupon the two decided that nuclear war was untenable, and resolved the crisis with an agreement that the Soviets would remove their nuclear missiles from Cuba in exchange for the Americans removing theirs from Turkey (as close to Russia as Cuba is to the U.S.). The crisis did end, though, in fact, Kennedy never followed through on his promise, and subsequent presidents refused to honor it. So it was really the Russians who saved humanity.

            Now we have, in the United States, what Stephen Cohen calls “the war party” agitating to take on the Russians again. One of these war mongers, Strobe Talbott (former Deputy Secretary of State, now president of the Brookings Institute, and, according to Cohen, the architect of the American policy that led to this crisis. He was “the Russia hand,” as he called his memoir, under President Clinton, when the expansion of NATO toward Russia began.) brought out a report that said this:

In the context of what is happening in Ukraine today, the right way to characterize it is an act of war on the part of the Russian Federation. This means that there is going on in Ukraine today a literal invasion, not by—it’s not a proxy war. It’s a literal invasion by the Russian armed forces. It’s a literal occupation of large parts, well beyond Crimea, of eastern Ukraine. And it is a virtual annexation of a lot of territory other than just the Crimea. And in that respect, this is a major threat to the peace of Europe, to the peace of Eurasia, and therefore a threat to the interests of the United States and, I would say, a threat to the chances of a peaceful 21st century.

Talbott, of course, was seconded by dozens of other ‘war party’ members (Sen. John McCain, as usual, indicating that he’s never heard of a war or invasion he didn’t like), and members of the state department’s war wing who also have been calling for more direct arms for the Kiev government. Cohen urges Americans to stop and think what this means. Basically, he says, they are claiming that Russia has annexed eastern Ukraine, which is “fundamentally untrue.” And supports this by quoting the State Department when asked if it could confirm that Russia has annexed eastern Ukraine? To which it responded, "No, we cannot." And yet, not ever acknowledging that it was the Kiev side who broke the September truce and began shelling Donetsk and Luhansk, the war party is still calling for war with Russia.

            You would think that so-called Russia experts would know a few things about the vast country called Russia. You would think they would know how sensitive every Russian must be about invasions of their nation by western powers—once in 1812 when Napoleon led his armies all the way to Moscow, destroying everything in his path including the capitol itself, only to be defeated by the Russian Cossacks who decimated his army as it retreated from the Russian winter; and again in 1942 when Nazi Germany’s armed divisions attacked on the Russian front, devastating cities and countryside, and killing millions of Russians who nevertheless fought back with inferior weapons and prevailed by tearing the guts out of that invading German army, and, contrary to the myth that America defeated the Nazis, counterattacked and brought Germany to its knees. (And isn’t it interesting that the two European leaders now on a diplomatic mission to Russia are German Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande). You would think they, of all people, would know that any encroachment on Russian territory is seen by all Russians as a direct threat to their survival (and they have recent experience to substantiate this)—which is why Russia has always viewed the expansion of NATO as a threat to their existence. Which is also why keeping Ukraine in their orbit has always been so critical. It is the border country, the gateway to Russia itself, the gateway through which, in 1942, the Nazis drove their war machine, helped by the western Ukrainian collaborators whose descendant neo-Nazis formed much of the muscle for the coup that overthrew the elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych (after, remember, the West’s agreement to allow Yanukovych to remain until elections in the Spring).

            Prof. Cohen acknowledges this point—that what has been driving Putin and Russia in helping the eastern Ukrainians is not their alleged intention to “revive the Soviet empire” but their zeal to “stop NATO encroachment.” Many other knowledgeable observers like Robert Parry and Prof. John Mearsheimer have made this same point. But the war party seems determined to continue and expand this encroachment, even up to and including igniting a hot war with Russia if necessary. It is the kind of insanity most of us had hoped was a thing of the past—the threat of nuclear Armageddon. But now it seems it’s only been hiding out and waiting for its opportunity. Already, we are informed that American General Ben Hodges, commanding general of American forces in Europe, has brought American troops to help train Kiev’s National Guard. He has also led U.S. troops to

Latvia for a military exercise, dubbed Atlantic Resolve, to train soldiers from Latvia, other Baltic countries and Poland. In addition, the U.S. brought more than 50 units of military equipment, including 17 armored vehicles, Stryker, that will stay in Europe.

Yes. These arms will stay in Europe indefinitely. For what? From all outward appearances,  the American military is making preparations for war with Russia. Prof. Cohen acknowledges this with no little fear and trepidation:

The American war party is on the march. You can see how close we are to, literally, a military confrontation with Russia. And there is not one word of establishment, mainstream opposition in this country.

And one of the ways war parties do this is to build up propaganda about the putative enemy. In the same way that we heard that Saddam Hussein was “the new Hitler,” Russian president Putin has become the Nazi madman’s most recent reincarnation. This is odd, because only a few months ago, he was the visionary leader who prevented President Obama from yielding to the war hawks’ demands to bomb Syria and President Assad for having used chemical weapons (another false charge, it now seems.) Putin resolved the crisis by arranging for Assad to agree to get rid of all his chemical weapons, thus eliminating the “red line” that Obama had promised could not be crossed. And a few years back, President G.W. Bush was boasting of his emotional and somewhat mystical rapport with the Russian leader, when he looked him in the eye and found a comrade. But now Putin is the new Hitler to be destroyed. And the corollary is that Russia must be brought to its knees once again—perhaps because it has managed to make itself indispensable, via its oil and gas reserves, to the Europe America wants dependent on itself. Hence Saudi Arabia’s increased production to bring down oil prices and bankrupt the Russian economy; hence the sanctions that have forced the Russian ruble into free fall. But will Putin and Russia yield to this kind of threat? It is not at all clear, and what history shows us is that Russia is most dangerous, and most resourceful, when it is attacked and fighting against long odds. For Cohen, this is unsettling indeed. Historians, he says, will look back,

—assuming there are historians to look back, because both sides are now mobilizing their nuclear weapons, as well. Russia has already said that if it is faced with overwhelming force on its borders, it will use tactical nuclear weapons. They’re nuclear small, but they’re nuclear weapons. When is the last time you heard a great power say that? We say—Obama, our president, says, "We’re modernizing our nuclear weapons." What does that mean? We’re redeploying them, pointing them even more at Russia. Why is this happening in the United States? I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of factors mixed in, a kind of ideological hangover from the old Cold War. But the demonization of Putin has become so extreme in this country, I do not recall—and I entered this field back in the '60s—the United States ever demonizing a Soviet communist leader the way our leaders do…

Somber words. Two major powers readying their nuclear arsenals for confrontation. Can this be happening again? But considering the lack of opposition in the U.S. at this time, considering the zealotry and insanity of the so-called “war party,” and the history of similar war partiers during the Cuban missile crisis, we shouldn’t dismiss Cohen’s words out of hand. We should do everything we can to warn, educate, and protest about what is shaping up to be yet another threat from the crazies in our world who, for whatever reason, seem to believe that violence, staggering violence against ordinary people, is the only way to preserve and expand their credibility, their manhood, and whatever else they think they have.

Lawrence DiStasi