The ‘We-Hate-Putin’ Group Think

Exclusive: The only foreign policy show on the U.S. media dial this past week has been the bashing of Russian President Putin over the Ukraine crisis with a slap or two at President Obama for having worked with Putin on Syria and Iran. Lost in this “group think” is the why behind this demonization, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

The U.S. political-media elites, which twisted themselves into a dangerous “group think” over the Iraq War last decade, have spun out of control again in a wild overreaction to the Ukraine crisis. Across the ideological spectrum, there is rave support for the coup that overthrew Ukraine’s elected president and endless ranting against Russian President Vladimir Putin for refusing to accept the new coup leadership in Kiev and intervening to protect Russian interests in Crimea.

The “we-hate-Putin” hysteria has now reach the point that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has deployed the “Hitler analogy” against Putin, comparing Putin’s interests in protecting ethnic Russians in Ukraine with Hitler citing ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe to justify aggression at the start of World War II.

Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Russian government photo)

Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Russian government photo)

“I just want people to have a little historic perspective,” the reputed 2016 Democratic presidential frontrunner told a question-and-answer session at UCLA on Wednesday, confirming reports of her using the Hitler analogy during an earlier private fundraiser.

Some Clinton backers suggested she made the provocative comparison to give herself protection from expected right-wing attacks on her for having participated in the “reset” of U.S. policy toward Russia in 2009. She also was putting space between herself and President Barack Obama’s quiet effort to cooperate with Putin to resolve crises with Iran and Syria.

But what is shocking about Clinton’s Hitler analogy and why it should give Democrats pause as they rush to coronate her as their presidential nominee in 2016 is that it suggests that she has joined the neoconservative camp, again. Since her days as a U.S. senator from New York — and as a supporter of the Iraq War — Clinton has often sided with the neocons and she’s doing so again in demonizing Putin.

Democrats might want to contemplate how a President Hillary Clinton would handle that proverbial “3 a.m. phone call,” perhaps one with conflicting information about a chemical weapons attack in Syria or muddled suspicions that Iran is moving toward a nuclear bomb or reports that Russia is using its military to resist a right-wing coup in neighboring Ukraine.

Would she unthinkingly adopt the hawkish neocon position as she often did as U.S. senator and as Secretary of State? Would she wait for the “fog of war” to lift or simply plunge ahead with flame-throwing rhetoric that could make a delicate situation worse?

There’s also the question of Clinton’s honesty. Does she really believe that Putin protecting ethnic Russians from an illegitimate government that seized power in a right-wing coup on Russia’s border is comparable to Hitler invading Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland?

Media Endorsement

Normally, anyone who uses a Hitler analogy is immediately chastised for both absurd hyperbole and anti-Semitism. Besides the extreme exaggeration involved, the Hitler analogy trivializes the scope of Hitler’s crimes both in provoking World War II and carrying out the Holocaust against European Jews.

Usually neocons are among the first to protest this cheapening of the Holocaust’s memory, but apparently their determination to take down Putin for his interference in their “regime change” plans across the Middle East caused some neocons to endorse Clinton’s Hitler analogy. One of the Washington Post’s neocon editorial writers, Charles Lane, wrote on Thursday: “Superficially plausible though the Hitler-Putin comparison may be, just how precisely does it fit? In some respects, alarmingly so.”

Yet, outside of this mad “group think” that has settled over Official Washington, Clinton’s Hitler analogy is neither  reasonable nor justified. If she wanted to note that protecting one’s national or ethnic group has been cited historically to justify interventions, she surely didn’t have to go to the Hitler extreme. There are plenty of other examples.

For instance, it was a factor in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s when President James Polk cited protecting Texans as a justification for the war with Mexico. The “protect Americans” argument also was used by President Ronald Reagan in justifying his invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada in 1983. Reagan said he was protecting American students at the St. George’s Medical School, even though they were not in any real physical danger.

In other conflicts, human rights advocates have asserted the right to defend any civilians from physical danger under the so-called “responsibility to protect” — or “R2P” — principle. For example, neocons and various U.S.-based “non-governmental organizations” have urged a U.S. military intervention in Syria supposedly to protect innocent human life.

However, if anyone dared compare Ronald Reagan or, for that matter, R2P advocates to Hitler, you could expect the likes of Charles Lane to howl with outrage. Yet, when Putin faces a complex dilemma like the violent right-wing coup in Ukraine and worries about ethnic Russians facing potential persecution he is casually compared to Hitler with almost no U.S. opinion leader protesting the hype.

Who Were the Snipers?

There is also new evidence suggesting that the sniper shootings in Kiev — a pivotal moment in the uprising to overthrow President Viktor Yanukovych — may have been the work of neo-Nazi provocateurs trying to foment a coup, not the police trying to stop one.

According to an intercepted phone conversation between Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, Paet reported on a conversation that he had with a doctor in Kiev who said the sniper fire that killed protesters was the same that killed police officers. As reported by the UK Guardian, “During the conversation, Paet quoted a woman named Olga who the Russian media identified her as Olga Bogomolets, a doctor blaming snipers from the opposition shooting the protesters.”

Paet said, “What was quite disturbing, this same Olga told that, well, all the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides.

“So she also showed me some photos, she said that as medical doctor, she can say it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened. … So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition.”

Ashton replied: “I think we do want to investigate. I didn’t pick that up, that’s interesting. Gosh.”

However, the sniper fire has been cited by the U.S. government and major U.S. news outlets as evidence of Yanukovych’s depravity, thus justifying his violent removal from office last month when he was forced to flee for his life after neo-Nazi militias seized control of government buildings.

Yet, despite the new evidence suggesting that the coup-makers may have been responsible for instigating the violence, the mainstream U.S. press continues to revise the preferred narrative by putting white hats on the coup-makers and black hats on the Yanukovych government. For instance, the New York Times has stopped reporting that more than a dozen police officers were among the 80 or so people killed as protests in Kiev turned violent. The typical new version in the U.S. press is simply that Yanukovych’s police opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, killing 80 of them.

And to take a contradictory view of this conventional wisdom marks you as “crazy.” When Yanukovych and Putin raised questions about who actually opened fire, the U.S. news media dismissed their suspicions as “conspiracy theories” and proof of “delusional” thinking. It is now a virtual consensus across the U.S. news media that Putin is “unstable” and “disconnected from reality.”

The Washington Post called Putin’s Tuesday news conference “rambling.” However, if you read the transcript, it is anything but “rambling” or “delusional.” Putin comes across as quite coherent, expressing a detailed understanding of the Ukraine crisis and the legal issues involved.

Putin begins his response to reporters’ questions by puzzling over the reasons for the violent overthrow of Yanukovych, especially after the Ukrainian president agreed to European terms for surrendering much of his power, moving up elections and ordering police to withdraw. But that Feb. 21 agreement lasted only two hours, ended by neo-Nazi extremists seizing control of government buildings and forcing Yanukovych to flee for his life.

Putin said, “There can only be one assessment: this was an anti-constitutional takeover, an armed seizure of power. Does anyone question this? Nobody does. There is a question here that neither I, nor my colleagues, with whom I have been discussing the situation in Ukraine a great deal over these past days, as you know none of us can answer. The question is why was this done?

“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that President Yanukovych, through the mediation of the Foreign Ministers of three European countries Poland, Germany and France and in the presence of my representative (this was the Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin) signed an agreement with the opposition on February 21.

“I would like to stress that under that agreement (I am not saying this was good or bad, just stating the fact) Mr. Yanukovych actually handed over power. He agreed to all the opposition’s demands: he agreed to early parliamentary elections, to early presidential elections, and to return to the 2004 Constitution, as demanded by the opposition.

“He gave a positive response to our request, the request of western countries and, first of all, of the opposition not to use force. He did not issue a single illegal order to shoot at the poor demonstrators. Moreover, he issued orders to withdraw all police forces from the capital, and they complied. He went to Kharkov to attend an event, and as soon as he left, instead of releasing the occupied administrative buildings, they [the armed militias] immediately occupied the President’s residence and the Government building all that instead of acting on the agreement.

“I ask myself, what was the purpose of all this? I want to understand why this was done. He had in fact given up his power already, and as I believe, as I told him, he had no chance of being re-elected. Everybody agrees on this, everyone I have been speaking to on the telephone these past few days. What was the purpose of all those illegal, unconstitutional actions, why did they have to create this chaos in the country?”

Now, there also is independent evidence suggesting that elements of the right-wing militias may have killed both protesters and police to destabilize the Ukrainian government and justify the coup.

U.S. Hypocrisy

In the same news conference, Putin noted the U.S. government’s hypocrisy in decrying Russia’s intervention in Crimea. He said: “It’s necessary to recall the actions of the United States in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, where they acted either without any sanction from the U.N. Security Council or distorted the content of these resolutions, as it happened in Libya. There, as you know, only the right to create a no-fly zone for government aircraft was authorized, and it all ended in the bombing and participation of special forces in group operations.”

There is no denying the accuracy of Putin’s description of U.S. overreach in its interventions in the Twenty-first Century. Yet, Secretary of State John Kerry has ignored that history in denouncing Russia for using military force in the Crimea section of Ukraine. Kerry said on Tuesday: “It is not appropriate to invade a country and at the end of a barrel of gun dictate what you are trying to achieve. That is not Twenty-first Century, G-8, major-nation behavior.”

Despite Kerry’s bizarre lack of self-awareness — as a senator he joined in voting to authorize the U.S. invasion of Iraq — it is Putin who gets called “delusional.” While virtually all mainstream U.S. news outlets join in the demonization of Putin, there have been almost no words about the truly delusional hypocrisy of U.S. officials. Ignored is the inconvenient truth that the U.S. military invaded Iraq, still occupies Afghanistan, coordinated a “regime change” war in Libya in 2011, and has engaged in cross-border attacks in several countries, including Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Though we’ve seen other examples of the U.S. political/media elite losing its collective mind particularly during the crazed run-up to war in Iraq in 2002-2003 and the near stampede into another war with Syria in 2013 the frantic madness over Putin and Ukraine is arguably the most dangerous manifestation of this nutty Official Washington “group think.”

Not only does Putin lead a powerful nation with a nuclear arsenal but his cooperation with President Obama on Syria and Iran have been important contributions toward tamping down the fires of what could become a wider regional war across the Middle East.

Yet, it is perhaps Putin’s assistance in finding peaceful ways out of last year’s Syrian crisis as well as getting Iran to negotiate seriously over its nuclear program rather than pressing for violent “regime change” in the two countries that earned Putin the undying enmity of the neocons who still dominate Official Washington and influence its “group think.”

Maybe that enmity explains part of the mysterious why behind the Ukraine crisis and the endless demonization of Putin.

Elliott Abrams, a leading neocon who oversaw Middle East policy on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council staff, was quick to pounce on the Ukraine crisis and the pummeling of Putin to urge a new push for legislation that would pile on more sanctions against Iran, a move that President Obama has warned could kill negotiations.

“This would be a very good time for Congress to pass the Menendez-Kirk legislation,” Abrams wrote. “One lesson of events in Ukraine is that relying on the good will of repressive, anti-American regimes is foolish and dangerous. Another is that American strength and strength of will are weakened at the peril of the United States and our friends everywhere.”

While at the NSC, Abrams was one of the neocon hardliners along with Vice President Dick Cheney who “”were all for letting Israel do whatever it wanted” regarding attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his memoir, Duty.

That attack-Iran argument nearly carried the day during the final months of the Bush-43 administration since, according to Gates, “Bush effectively came down on Cheney’s side. By not giving the Israelis a red light, he gave them a green one.”

But a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, representing the views of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, concluded that Iran had stopped work on a nuclear weapon four years earlier. Bush has acknowledged that this NIE stopped him from going forward with military strikes on Iran.

The neocons, however, have never given up that dream. Now, with the “we-hate-Putin” group think gripping Official Washington, they may feel they have another shot. [For more, see Consortiumnews.com’s “What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis.”]

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

17 comments for “The ‘We-Hate-Putin’ Group Think

  1. Peter Loeb
    March 10, 2014 at 06:40

    In the haste for the mainstream media to take these positions, they fail to
    report that the United States, together with every other nation on the UN
    Security Council, endorsed the recent UN Resolution, S/Res/2139(2014) which
    includes NOTE 14 (page 4 of the document). All al Quaeda organizations
    and affiliates are designated a TERRORIST organizations and responsible
    for grave crimes against humanity. The UN (including the US) DEMANDS
    the immediate withdrawal of all such organizations from Syria.

    With thanks to the US and all other members of the “international community”
    for their unanimous support of this language—virtually identical to the
    policies the Syrian Regime has expressed for years and now OFFICIAL UN POLICY — I now await the announcement of US assistance to implement these policies.. Perhaps sending some so-called “non-lethal” aid to the Syrian Regime as well as
    weapons would encourage the immediate withdrawal of these “terrorist”
    organizations and the fight against them of other rebel groups UPON WHICH
    UN now insists.

    I suggest that all of those interested in the position of the international community read carefully the original resoluttion at the UN Security
    Council webbsite . Use identification mentioned above( S/Res/2139(2014).

    —–Peter Loeb, Boston

  2. soltysss
    March 9, 2014 at 08:40

    overreacting? this all situation could result in at least 20 more countries acquire nuclear weapon! Putin is breaking international low – then what stop others? all safety in the world can be anded! and it’s not about crimea peninsular anymore, it about if international low is works or not! Ukraine has protection from USA, GB, Russian for giving up our nuclear weapon!

  3. mf
    March 8, 2014 at 19:18

    among other things, the Ukraine story is an acid test for the American Left. Had the American Left learned anything from it’s past romance with Uncle Joe (we saw the future and it works) and his illustrious successors? Can American Left graduate to being an actual political partner, a credible political force?

    Judging by this story, and an explosion of similar stories on lefty blogs, no and no and no again.

    So, there were snipers in Kiev, whose allegiance is not exactly known, who were shooting both at the police and the demonstrators. Who would these people have been? Why of course, agents of nefarious western interests, cia, the assorted lot.

    Or perhaps, Robert Parry, it was the guy who wanted a violent crackdown all along? The one to the east, who was curiously prepared with plans of invasion all laid out, his “parliament” at the ready to complete the Anschluss? The guy who can organize a “referendum” at a drop of a hat? In less than a week?

    Are you this naïve, or are you actually acting with malice? In the memorable words of Clark Clifford, which do you plead: stupidity or venality?

    You know, I lived in Poland during the time of Solidarity. Pravda, called all of us cia agents. I bet you would too.

  4. lumpentrol
    March 8, 2014 at 02:50

    U.S. political-media elites have -not- twisted themselves into dangerous “group think”: they are following a script and taking direction.

    Public expressions os of Hatred towards Vladimir Putin (a.k.a. Emmanuel Goldstein) are required — as demonstrations of fealty to the shadow elite. Even RT’s dim witted US based anchors understand that their good careers and comfortable lives belong to the same audience of gangster-oligarchs to which Hillary is playing.

    Her Hitler Sudetenland comments show that she is still interested in auditioning for the role White House figurehead. Her candidacy can be destroyed at a moments notice and will be if ceases to be useful. Persisting in the notion that any of these actor/politicians are in any way independent/rational reinforces the illusion of lawfulness and democracy.

    Let’s not fall into the trap of waiting for a hero, again. Based on past behaviour we have nothing to hope for in any case.

    The comments made by Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet are likely stage managed by the EU as a form of push back against the Neocons. A better description is that the EU is playing good cop to the Necon bad cop. Both parties (the US and EU) are still commited to the neoliberal regime change shakedown of Ukraine.

    The emnity towards Putin reflects that the ruling class gansters understand that he alone wields sufficient hard power to oppose and confront them, something he has only done when Russia’s traditional interests have been challenged directly. Meanwhile China seems satisfied to let Putin do all of the heavy lifting as it dumps 50 billion dollars worth of US bonds per month, as it began doing in December.

    The inescapable conclusion is that sooner or later the Neocons will miscalculate, perhaps intentionally (they are already guaranteed billions in profits from their miscalculation in Syria) before they come looking for a ‘technological’ solution rescue their fortunes, hence the need for an offensive missile shield placed on Russia’s borders and the first strike capability it theoretically offers.

  5. Jonny James
    March 7, 2014 at 18:45

    Great article and good comments. I just heard RP on the Counterspin show on Pacifica Radio. His coverage of this issue is top-notch. Ray McGovern, Prof. Stephen Cohen, Prof. F Boyle, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Pepe Escobar, FW Engdahl, Profs. Jeff Sommers and Michael Hudson, and others have also produced some excellent articles and interviews on the various geo-political and economic aspects of this crisis.

    Very refreshing that not everyone has been fooled by the almost non-stop propaganda in the corporate media cartel (including the BBC of course).

    It seems Mr. Parry is coming to realize that this type of foreign policy is not just neocon, it predates PNAC by a long time. Zbiggy B., a critic of the neocons, appears to be the behind the scenes puppet master. The dutiful US sycophantic so-called press falls right into line as usual.

    If anyone has lost their marbles its Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, neither of whom are associated with the “neocons”. While I am no psychiatrist, it seems the “neocons” and most of the CFR are completely nuts.

    Dr. Zbiggy “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski has criticized the “neocons’ many times, however in practice, his fp prescriptions are very similar indeed to the “neocons”.
    Just a different brand of full spectrum dominance world hegemony. Many say he is the one who is calling the shots behind the scenes.

    The role of the IMF/ECB/NATO in all of this is indeed rather interesting. No matter what happens, Ukraine, with the possible exception of Crimea and eastern part of the country, is going to experience economic destruction even worse than they have seen so far. This is going to cause a humanitarian crisis as pensions get cut to near nothing and what’s left of public infrastructure will be sold off to pay off the banks. Very sad indeed.

  6. mike keleher
    March 7, 2014 at 18:28

    What no one will write about is the Jewish/Zionist influence in the think tanks, newspapers, and government. Frankly, while most Jews arent neocons, most neocons are Jews – it was and is essentially a Jewish movement.

    And it was and is about putting Israel first, loyalty to fellow jews, and making Israel a superpower using American blood and treasure…

    Fearing the inane “antisemite” smear in the face of treason and ethnocentrism by a large minority of jews, who as a group have far, far more power and wealth than they “should” by demographics, is going to lead to more war.

    There is a “Jewish question” as to the MSM, think tanks, grad schools and Congress.

    We should not have to be brave to talk about it. Only honest.

    • nibs
      March 10, 2014 at 11:50

      Mike you are on the button with this analysis, sad though it is. Iraq, Afghan, Libya, Syria and now Ukraine, sowing death and mayhem just to advance their very narrow interests. Some journalists get near to exposing it, but it’s nearly impossible stateside for the reasons you give.

  7. Kim
    March 7, 2014 at 12:27

    Hillary Clinton is a right-wing monster.

    This ugly, Neocon fool is moving us closer to global thermonuclear war. (And, as an aside, is proving that there is no longer any difference, at all, between Democrats and the rightist of the Right Wing. This is maniac, Bircher talk.)

    Seriously, had a benighted idiot like Hillary Clinton been in office in 1962. we would not be here to discuss this.

  8. J
    March 7, 2014 at 12:24

    Comments about Putin are such hypocritical lies it is insane. How can a country who literally stole land from and murdered the native Americans claim that Putin is wrong? If we’re going to talk bad about Putin, we need to move out of America and give them their land back. American leaders don’t like Putin because he stands for traditional values and is not a liberal like Obama. America needs to realize that their policy which supports massive debt and stupidity will not stand, and that we need leaders who are more godly and traditional.

  9. Tom Coombs
    March 7, 2014 at 11:57

    Great reporting as usual, the sad part is that the same glib mis or disinformation comes up on the Daily Show.
    I like Jon Stewart. His take on American domestic affairs is insightful. However, when he and other American comedians focus on international affairs they are shackled by a preconceived American agenda. To tell a “foreign” joke in the states you have to assume that Russians,Cubans and Venezuelans are evil. Europeans are pantywaists and Canadians eat “Canadian ” bacon covered in maple syrup. Canadian bacon sucks, it’s back bacon rolled in corn meal and is severely over salted, we eat the same bacon as you guys. The story in the Ukraine and Crimea is much bigger than the shirtless horse enthusiast. the biggest jokes in Canada are not Ford and Bieber. Have a look at our inept leader, Stephen “Little Stevie” Harper and his tar sand stained cronies. We used to be the White Doves fighting the Black Hawks, now we’re personified by slippery plutocrats.

    • F. G. Sanford
      March 7, 2014 at 12:20

      Tom, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, and maybe you already know: Jon Stewart’s brother is a multimillionaire high-roller Wall Street banker…or in some circles, a slippery plutocrat?

  10. Paul G.
    March 7, 2014 at 08:58

    Well it seems an infamous member of the “We hate Putin club”, Mikheil Saakashvili (Misha), is now in Kiev as an adviser according to the present Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili. Misha has brought with him his uncle and close adviser, Temur Alasania, a former KGB colonel. The Kiev government reportedly would like to bring in several other members of the United National Party who are now wanted in Georgia for alleged criminal acts while in power. They should fit in well with Ukrainian politics.

    Misha has distinguished himself as a fanatical Russiaphobe rarely missing a opportunity to insult Putin in particular and Russia in general. This is the genius who in response to small arms provocations from S. Ossetia in August of 2008 responded with a massive artillery and rocket barrage on the breakaway province’s capital city; resulting in a brief war with Russia and the routing of the Georgian army well into Georgia proper . The action solidified the two breakaway districts ties with Russia, the opposite to what was intended. Note that one of his principle advisers then was a lobbyist who was a chief adviser to Presidential candidate John McCain, making one wonder if McCain was cheering him on to give himself an opportunity to “stand tall” in the campaign. At the same time however, Condoleesa
    Rice and the American Ambassador to Georgia were telling Misha not to do any thing rash.
    After last October’s Presidential election(his term limit was up), and his party’s loss of that position to the Georgian Dream coalition ; Misha promptly fled the country for a teaching post at Tufts University. He can be described without exaggeration as a libertarian and firm believer in Washington Consensus economics and policies.

    The Georgian PM was giving the Kiev government friendly advice that listening to Misha could bring them great trouble considering …”his radical nature and adventurous approach towards the issues.” Although initially a reformer some Georgians believe Misha went crazy with power.

  11. F. G. Sanford
    March 7, 2014 at 08:11

    Oddly enough, there may be something to Hillary’s analogy, but it goes in the wrong direction. If one looks at those 1940’s era documentaries, like Frank Capra’s “Why we Fight”, the animated maps showing the tentacular consolidation of Europe under the “unified Reich” look a lot like the EU and NATO expansionist footprint of today. Yanukovych’s plight looks a lot like that of Miklos Horthy, whose vacillations between collaborative alliance with Germany and safe surrender but loss of autonomy to the Soviet Union left his country with nothing but destruction. Shooting protestors on both sides of the struggle as we saw in Maidan Square contains an aroma reminiscent of the Gleiwitz Incident. Strategic control of Ukraine under the doctrine of “liebensraum” was motivated by resource considerations. Then it was wheat, today it is energy. The soft underbelly of Russia, who lost 27 million people to this nightmare of “geopolitik” is once again threatened. Alliance with Japan to insure naval assets sufficient to achieve maritime hegemony over Eurasia also has a familiar ring. Today, it’s called “pivot to the east”. These strategies were concocted in no small measure based on Karl Haushofer’s imperialistic delusions. Today, geostrategy has a new proponent, but it’s author’s personality is just as toxic. I recommend readers go to YouTube and search, “Zbigniew Brzezinsky Salutes Euro Maidan”. I’d provide the link, but it seems to create havoc with WordPress.

    You may denounce my analogy as facile or simplistic. But I would counter that it’s a lot less “Looney Tunes” than Hillary’s ill-advised rhetoric. The mistake people make is believing that politicians are smarter than we are, and we can’t understand their higher logic. What we routinely miss is not their logic, but their motives. Those usually prove to be as vulgar and low-minded as anyone else’s.

    • March 7, 2014 at 20:01

      “not until the Allied Propaganda of WW2 is placed in the history books,can we say that their is victory”. Walter Lipmman. Advisor to Wilson,FDR,and Neoconservative. It iis absurd to refernce a nasty piece of corny LIES ,that Frank Capras:WHY WE FIGHT .series was. FACT:FACT:FACT: Germany had ZERO unemployment in 39,and had banished the International Banks(Rothchild 57 % US FED,Bank Of England) and FACT:FDR wanteda third term.FACT Churchull WANTED WAR. FACT. Hitler made clear what he wanted. A return of Germans to the Reich,as THEY WANTED IT TOO! Fact :he asked for help with the Polish Border disputes,and attacks upon German People their (Oh thats right German l,ives are meaningless.Too white,to intelligent,to Christain)and a Plebasite.He offered aide tp Poland(Ruled by a militery junta)roads,and an alliance. Nor is Austra(Too much SOUND OF MUSIC nonsense) an invasion. It was greeted by roses,and voted on. The Slovaks did wanted out of the Czechs. ENGLAND AND FRANCE DECLARED WAR ON GERMANY<AND REFUSED ALL <AND ANY MORE PEACE INITITIVES,which were offerd by a surrounded,brillinat,but resouce starved Axis. Churchill. NEOCONSERVATIVEsaid NO,to peace terms. But some still keep up the LIBERAL attacks on Hitler,and the Neoconservatives(ex Liberals ) use it just fine! get over the Left Rght rubbish. READ,and learn,who is really behind all of this. SEE THE BAD WAR.COM. THE NEW DEALERS WAR:Fleming.FIRESTORM OVER GERMANY:Goodrich.HITLER:The End Of Infamy:RHS Solti. THE ORIGENS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR;AJP Taylor.THE UNECESSARY WAR;Buchanan.THE BAD WAR.COM.

      • F. G. Sanford
        March 8, 2014 at 12:03

        Somebody went off his meds…

  12. TDS
    March 7, 2014 at 07:46

    Parry’s writing on the Ukraine crisis, and not least of all his latest piece, “The ‘We-Hate-Putin’ Group Think,” demonstrate once again the clarity and astuteness he (and so many of the other Consortiumnews.com writers) routinely bring to bear in assessing the contemporary political realm. Where would so many of us be without his informed analyses and remarkable powers of perception?

  13. Paul G.
    March 7, 2014 at 06:54

    Great summary. However, I regard Hillary’s hyperbolic and stupid comments as merely a campaign speech; not a comment on the crisis that deserves any recognition. What she is trying to do is “standing tall”, exploiting the current situation (tragedy) to demonstrate how “tough” she is. The meta communication (communication within the communication) is about herself much more than the apparent subject. It is hard to fathom that someone with an expensive and elite education, Wellesley, Yale Law School, could have such a abysmal lack of understanding of the basics of arbitration and negotiation demonstrated by this insulting escalation of combative words.

    What she obviously failed to realize is that her comments demonstrate her total incompetence to have been Secretary of State and more so to ever be POTUS. She has shown herself to be a spectacular hot head. Not the first time, during the last campaign when asked about nuking Iran over their alleged nuke program she responded, ..”all options would be on the table”

    What is strange is that if she does unfortunately become the Democratic candidate, and she keeps up this style, the Republicans are going to have to go even further to the right to match her. What a nightmare!!!

    I highly recommend Ralph Nader’s article in Counterpunch on her sleazy, rotten, aggressive record: “The Dynastic Hillary Bandwagon”, Nov. 11, 2013

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