Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Putin’s Pal

"Page Two --- As Moscow Advances, U.S. Allies Look Warily to Trump for Clarity "

.. your two articles were very very good ones! .. this sorta fits, and Stephen
Cohen as far as i could see gets only an obscure mention on the board, years ago ..

Stephen Cohen was once considered a top Russia historian. Now he publishes odd
defenses of Vladimir Putin. The Nation just published his most outrageous one yet.

By Cathy Young July 24 2014 6:43 PM

[ ... to the end ... ]

In a downright surreal passage, Cohen argues that Putin has shown “remarkable restraint” so far but faces mounting public pressure due to “vivid accounts” in the Russian state-run media of Kiev’s barbarities against ethnic Russians. Can he really be unaware that the hysteria is being whipped up by lurid fictions, such as the recent TV1 story about a 3-year-old boy crucified in Slovyansk’s main square in front of a large crowd and his own mother? Does Cohen not know that Russian disinformation and fakery, including old footage from Dagestan or Syria passed off as evidence of horrors in Ukraine, has been extensively documented? Is he unaware that top Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin himself, have publicly repeated allegations of war crimes that were quickly exposed as false, such as white phosphorus use by Ukrainian troops or a slaughter of the wounded in a hospital? But Cohen manages to take the surrealism a notch higher, earnestly citing the unnamed “dean of Moscow State University’s School of Television” (that’s Vitaly Tretyakov, inter alia a 9/11 “truther”) who thinks the Kremlin may be colluding with the West to hush up the extent of carnage in Ukraine.

There is no question that eastern Ukraine is currently dealing with a human rights catastrophe. All evidence suggests that it is overwhelmingly the responsibility of the Russia-sponsored militants, though there is almost certainly wrongdoing on the part of Kiev as well. If, as Cohen charges, the Obama administration, the “hawks,” and the “establishment media” are covering up for Kiev for political reasons, the U.N. and the leading human rights groups would have to be complicit in this cover-up.

It is embarrassing to see Cohen—once a serious scholar whose work was praised by the likes of British historian Robert Conquest—sink to the level of repeating Russian misinformation; it is no less of an embarrassment that The Nation would print something so shoddy. One likely element of truth in Cohen’s account is that Putin is indeed feeling the pressure of public sentiment in favor of saving Ukraine’s ethnic Russians from the “fascist junta”—not because of actual Kiev atrocities, but because the Kremlin has wound up a propaganda machine it cannot stop. By recycling this propaganda and giving it the imprimatur of a respectable American magazine, Cohen and The Nation are not doing Russia, or anyone, any favors.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/07/stephen_cohen_vladimir_putin_s_apologist_the_nation_just_published_the_most.html

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One other which again has Stephen Cohen in a get-along-with-Putin Trump-like light.

What's Next for U.S.-Russia Relations? Stephen Cohen & Ken Roth on Trump, Hacking & Tillerson

December 14, 2016

[...]

STEPHEN COHEN:... So, here we have no facts presented by the CIA. The FBI itself will not go along, because it’s a fact organization. It’s got to have evidence that’s presentable in a court. We have the possibility—I don’t know, but it’s offered by credible people—that this wasn’t hacking, but leaking. And the result is, we’re having the new president called essentially a Kremlin lackey. Senator McCain has said, to his eternal discredit, that Putin is a bully, a liar, an invader of countries, a man who’s determined to destroy the American way of life, and adds, if anybody doesn’t agree with Senator McCain, he’s a liar. So—

AMY GOODMAN: He also calls Putin a killer. Do you agree?

STEPHEN COHEN: A killer, a murderer. No, I do not. Well, I mean, killer, in warfare, yes. He didn’t—oh, well, McCain went on to say that Putin had personally ordered the killing of Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition who was shot down on a bridge. No one in Moscow takes that seriously, not even Nemtsov’s family.

--- INSERT ---
Boris Nemtsov murder: Putin 'politically responsible' – daughter
Zhanna Nemtsova says she has no evidence against the president but reiterates that her father was ‘the most powerful leader of the opposition in Russia’
Ben Quinn Thursday 12 March 2015 20.08 AEDT
[...]
Asked if she believed that Putin had issued an order for her father to be killed, she replied: “I don’t have evidence but politically he is responsible.”

Nemtsova said that her father had been under pressure for the last decade,
adding: “He tried to resist … there was a lot of stress but he was a fighter.”

Father and daughter had talked about the possibility of him being jailed but she said
that he had never mentioned to her that there could be a “substantial threat” to his life.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/12/putin-politically-responsible-for-boris-nemtsov-daughter
--- end insert ---

But the point we have here, Amy—and this is exceedingly dangerous—is that we have a new accepted practice of labeling anyone who dissents from American policy toward Russia as a Kremlin apologist. And I know very serious people who have become afraid to speak out now, because they don’t want to be labeled.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s get Kenneth Roth’s response and also to the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan—of course, both Republicans—announcing their support for an investigation into whether Russia did hack the elections.

KENNETH ROTH: Well, by all means, there should be an investigation. I mean, why not?

STEPHEN COHEN: Sure.

KENNETH ROTH: You’ve got to be very careful, though, when—you know, when there are accusations against Russia, and the response is "new Cold War," as if "Let’s not look into this. Might be a new Cold War." You know, let’s look at the reality here. In Syria—we’ve just discussed this—there has been Putin’s involvement in the deliberate targeting of civilians. Ukraine, I mean, Amy, you had made a major faux pas by saying that Russia invaded Ukraine. You know, that was utterly denied by the Kremlin for a long time. It was the "little green men" in Crimea, until suddenly it was Russian forces. It was, you know, just a spontaneous uprising in eastern Ukraine, until suddenly there were Russian forces behind all that. So, you know, the truth is malleable when it’s useful. And I think it’s—we should be focusing on the reality.

Now, I have no special insight into the hacking allegations. By all means, there should be an investigation. And I do—I am concerned about Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, because, you know, here is a guy, Rex Tillerson, who has had a career in cozying up to autocrats around the world, you know, in the name of Big Oil.

[...]

AMY GOODMAN: Twenty seconds, Ken Roth.

KENNETH ROTH: Well, I’m all for talking with Putin, trying to cooperate with him. In fact, my New York Review piece argues that the key to Syria is for Trump to put pressure on Putin, because Assad wouldn’t be able to commit these atrocities without Putin’s active support. So, I’m—

STEPHEN COHEN: That’s not talking with Putin; that’s putting pressure on Putin.

KENNETH ROTH: And talk to him, too. And we never objected to the ongoing debate, the ongoing conversation,
but it shouldn’t be in lieu of the kind of pressure, which is all that Putin listens to these days.

STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, for God’s sake. That’s all he listens to. And you base that on what? Your careful study—

KENNETH ROTH: I’m watching—I’ve watched—

STEPHEN COHEN: Your careful study of Putin? Your following of Russian politics?

KENNETH ROTH: I’ve watched two—yeah, I’ve watched—let me answer. Let me answer.

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/14/whats_next_for_us_russia_relations

That last bit is part of the last of the exchange which in the reading is like looking at a verbal tennis match.

Big thanks for your two as Putin's dirty tricks in Montenegro was totally new to me.

See also:

Russia Today: why western cynics lap up Putin’s TV poison
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=125582447

Ukraine Fighting Serves as Donald Trump’s First Major Test
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=128391545