Raise Your Hand If You Think We Should Go To War With Russia

CCCP (Soviet) poster, 1963
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From the front page on 6/11/17 the New York Times ramps up anti-Russia propaganda campaign under the headline: "TRUMP-COMEY FEUD ECLIPSES A WARNING ON RUSSIA: 'THEY WILL BE BACK'"

It is widely recognized that the New York Times was a major force propagandizing the American public to support the U.S. Iraq invasion based on the lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a nuclear weapons program, collaborated with Al Qaeda on 911 and a slew of other fabrications. This front page article linked below in the June 11 2017 Sunday Times, along with a full page inside "ad" on page 9 proclaiming "The Russians Are Here" ostensibly to promote a network TV series (coincidental I'm sure) signals a major escalation in the on-going anti-Russia propaganda campaign. And that same "ad" ran as a banner running atop online Washington Post articles on June 12.

The co-author of the New York Times (NYT) piece David Sanger is a neo-con who cheer-led the Bush-Cheney war on Iraq and is on record as an ardent proponent of war with Iran. Is there any doubt that Sanger is one of the CIA assets at major mainstream media outlets that then-CIA head William Colby acknowledged to exist? Where is this whipped up, frenzied demonization of Russia and Putin taking us? The same place the Iraq WMD's campaign of lies did. It's the manufacture of consent--American public opinion is being shaped to support military confrontation with Russia.

And as has been the play book for other U.S. aggressions against out of favor leaders, from Panama's Manuel Noriega to Saddam Hussein and Libya's Gaddafi, Putin is the current "crafty, cunning Mr. Evil" being held up for public hatred. Based on the history, the U.S. no doubt is looking into the imperialist tool box for their long proven methods of overthrowing governments to see what fits to take down Putin; from fomenting widespread disorder in Russia to possible coup attempts, soft or otherwise. And just so there's no mistake, I'm not saying any of the above rulers were good guys. Just that the U.S. has no right or business in interfering and overthrowing governments around the world. You know, like what Russia is being accused of with no evidence--while the U.S. record is there for all to see of overthrowing or attempting to overthrow more than 50 governments since 1945.

The main obstacle to all this at this point is the clear split between the heavy gun bipartisan military/industrial/finance capital/ corporate media consensus to go after Russia, and Trump's proclaimed call for rapprochement with Russia. As Julian Assange put it upon Trump's missile attack on Syria and dropping the MOAB (mother of all bombs) on Afghanistan, it only took about 75 days for the deep state to "digest" Trump forcing him to at least make militarist gestures in that direction. Certainly Trump is no force for peace, and just might escalate military action against Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela or some other easier target to show how in the words of much of the mainstream media, that he knows how to "act presidential", meaning bombing countries that are no threat to the U.S. But articles like the NY Times' and elsewhere just pave the way for an outraged public reaction if or when a U.S. jet is shot down by Russian air defense over Syria or U.S. ground forces that have invaded Syria suffer casualties--or the tens of thousands of U.S. led NATO troops on Russia's borders clash in a shooting war.

Here's some of the choice quotes from the Times piece, and my comments in C APPED ITALICS:

"Russia disrupted American democracy last year and how to prevent it from happening again. Russian hackers did not just breach Democratic email accounts; according to Mr. Comey, they orchestrated a "massive effort" targeting hundreds of -- and possibly more than 1,000 -- American government and private organizations since 2015."
HOW ABOUT SOME CONCRETE EVIDENCE ON THIS?

"It's important for us in the West to understand that we're facing an adversary who wishes for his own reasons to do us harm," said Daniel Fried, a career diplomat who oversaw sanctions imposed on Russia before retiring this year. "Whatever the domestic politics of this, Comey was spot-on right that Russia is coming after us, but not just the U.S., but the free world in general. And we need to take this seriously."
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!

"Mr. Comey's special agents failed to react aggressively to evidence of the breach of the Democratic National Committee, spending nine months exchanging phone calls and vague warnings with young information-technology specialists at the committee while Russian intelligence agencies cleaned out the organization's emails. Only when emails from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign began showing up on WikiLeaks and other sites did the bureau recognize the scope of the operation."
SO WHY DID THE DNC REFUSE FBI REQUESTS FOR ACCESS TO THEIR COMPUTERS?

"Heather A. Conley, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an author of "The Kremlin Playbook," said Thursday. "It's a strategy of influence, not of brute force. The strategy's central concept, she said, refined in attacks on Eastern European countries, is that it is better to collapse a country from within."
IN OTHER WORDS, AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT!

"Graham Allison, a longtime Russia scholar at Harvard, said, "Russia's cyber intrusion into the recent presidential election signals the beginning of what is almost sure to be an intensified cyberwar in which both they -- and we -- seek to participate in picking the leaders of an adversary." The difference, he added, is that American elections are generally fair, so "we are much more vulnerable to such manipulation than is Russia," where results are often preordained."
A LAUGHABLE ASSERTION

"There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever," Mr. Comey said. "The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle... And it was an active-measures campaign driven from the top of that government. There is no fuzz on that."
EVIDENCE PLEASE?

"What we didn't talk enough about was the purpose we were there, about Russia's involvement and Russia's intent, how doggedly that they tried everything humanly possible and they will continue to keep trying and hitting on us to change how we do business in America, how we elect our officials, the confidence we have in our government," Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, said Friday on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC."

"But few doubt that the Russians have concluded that their attack on the American system was successful beyond their dreams -- they started a scandal that has consumed the American political process. "They can win two ways," Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat ... said Thursday. "They can do it" trying to influence votes, "or they can get caught doing it," and undercut confidence in the American electoral system."
INCREDIBLE--THE RUSSIANS STARTED THE SCANDAL--NOT THE DEMS & THE MEDIA!

Raise your hand if you think we should go to war with Russia? I didn't think so.