Last night’s Rossiya–1 TV program, Вести Недели (News of the Week), hosted by Dmitry Kiselyov, included clips of Ray commenting on President Donald Trumps national security adviser, “crazy” John Bolton, and comparing current U.S.-Russian tensions with those of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
April 15, 2018 (8 minutes)
One very important difference from Cuba -1962 that Ray noted, was JFK’s sang froid — his ability to host and heed sane advisers — like long-time U.S. Ambassador to the USSR Llewellyn Thompson — to help him make an end-run around “crazies” on the JCS — in particular, Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay. LeMay and his fellow JCS members (whom Under Secretary Secretary of State, who at the time had to deal with them, called a “sewer of deceit”) made no bones about how they saw the Cuban crisis as a golden opportunity to nuke the Russians.
Tens of millions of dead? No problem. Had mad-dog LeMay gotten his way, the U.S. Air Force would have destroyed much of the world — but, heck, in the process, would have saved it from Communism. (If you find that mentality hard to believe, you must read Dan Ellsberg most recent book, the work of a lifetime: The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.)
Comparisons are invidious, so I suppose it might be best not to cite the current overabundance of know-nothing, martinet generals — not to mention the alarming dearth of sober, Llewellyn Thompson-type diplomats, and advisers who actually know something about Russia. As for Russian experts in the intelligence community, by all indications they are either hiding in the library, assigned to targeting drone strikes, or regurgitating drivel from their bosses, infected as they seem to have been by superannuated guidance from the top. Self-styled Russian expert and long-time former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, himself a former AF general, “knows” — like LeMay — that Russians are “typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever.” Yes, Clapper appeared to be serious when he said that; he might even believe it. And others like him have bubbled to the top and are still in key positions.
Segments of Ray’s interview — improvised in his garden on Friday afternoon — appear at the beginning and the end of what was aired — amounting to more air time than the customarily highly abbreviated clips Ray’s recent interviews have been given on other Russian domestic channels for Sunday evening programs. The English can often be heard underneath the dubbing; “sumashedshi” — Ray’s first word, is Russian for “crazy.” He had been talking about Bolton.
The host on Rossiya-1, Dmitry Kiselyov, is not simply the presenter of this one weekly show. He is Russia’s top news director, in charge of news management on Russian domestic television, with a watching brief over RT, as well. Rossiya-1 is one of the two top Russian national channels owned by the Russian government (the other is Pervy Kanal (Channel 1).
With 24-hour coverage, Rossiya-1 is the top news station A reasonable estimate of Sunday’s “News of the Week” viewers would be in the low millions. It is broadcast domestically in evening prime time from Moscow and is also put on the Russian satellite channel Vesti 24 and aired twice in the evening. In addition to satellite, the show goes out “live” by video streaming on youtube and then enters the youtube archived materials within an hour or two. The youtube version itself may get half a million views. The TV version, in addition to reaching a few million in Russia, also reaches a large number of viewers across the band of the satellite, meaning at a minimum all of Europe.
Meanwhile, Back in Germany
The progressive “NachDenkSeiten” this morning rose promptly to the occasion, this time in new-record time, translating/publishing Ray’s Saturday morning article, “Attacking Syria: Thumbing Noses at Constitution and Law”
https://consortiumnews.com/
The NDS posting bears the title, “Der Angriff auf Syrien: Wie man Verfassung und Recht verhöhnt,” and can be read at:
https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/
(Some will recall that NDS published, less than a week after it was posted, Ray’s piece on John Bolton, one of “the crazies” as “Die kommende Attraktion: Der Irre ist los im Westflügel” — https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/
https://raymcgovern.com/2018/
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This morning’s NachDenkSeiten article begins:
“Es war ein trauriges Spektakel, zu sehen, wie die USA die Verfassung mit Füßen traten und versuchten, die Kritiker des Luftschlages auf Syrien zum Schweigen zu bringen, sagt Ray McGovern in diesem Kommentar, den Josefa Zimmermann für uns aus dem Englischen übersetzt hat.
“Die Verfassung der USA und das Völkerrecht erlitten letzte Nacht einen schweren Schlag durch die Hand einer seltsamen Koalition, die man als Goldlocke und die zwei moralischen Zwerge, die sich als Marinegeneräle ausgaben, bezeichnen könnte, zusammen mit der Schreckschraube aus “Right Dishonorable” (Satirewebsite, d. Ü.) und einem jungen französischen Pudel. …”
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Yesterday, Ray sent NachDenkSeiten a note (see below), in which he included quotes from the lead editorial in Sunday’s Washington Post, in an attempt to help provide Germans with some feel for how bad the propaganda has become — and how reminiscent of the media performance in drumming for war on Iraq. Ray has just been told that his comments have already been translated into German and may also be posted by NDS.) Here’s my note from yesterday:
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April 15, 2018
The Washington Post (also known as “Pravda on the Potomac”) led its coverage this morning with President Trump’s tweet “Mission Accomplished.” DOES HE NOT KNOW THAT THIS SLOGAN WAS USED BEFORE WITH REFERENCE TO THE “VICTORY” IN IRAQ, on May 1, 2003, by President George W. Bush speaking from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln? Below is the link to the WaPo lead editorial:
It is bad enough that some presidents have no sense of history — BUT THAT WAS ONLY 15 YEARS AGO! And before hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed and millions displaced.
Not only Nikki Haley, but also the Washington Post, warns today that the U.S. is willing and ready, at a moment’s notice, to repeat the performance of early Saturday morning. So, anticipate additional “false-flag” chemical attacks.
The role of the Washington Post and other prominent media is a carbon copy of their performance in the months before the attack on Iraq. The only notable difference is that the lead WaPo editorial today says:
“… it was wrong for Mr. Trump to call Friday’s operation a ‘Mission Accomplished’ … the U.S. mission there [in Syria] is far from accomplished.”
The editorial sharply criticizes President Trump’s “minimalist approach to Syria, [saying] that, ‘no amount of American blood or treasure can produce lasting peace and security in the Middle East.’ That fatalistic view is misguided, as is the president’s chimerical notion that [increased involvement by other countries] can prevent Iran from entrenching in Syria if the United States pulls out.”
The editorial calls (again) for “the departure of the Assad regime.” It adds: “The United States must use the leverage it has on the ground, by maintaining and, if necessary, fortifying its position in the country. It should work to stabilize eastern Syria under local authorities, including Kurds, while demanding an acceptable political settlement brokered by the United Nations.”
Finally, and ominously, The Washington Post editorial adds ” … if Russia takes retaliatory action, including in cyberspace, the United States must be ready to respond.”
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We all know how easy it is to set-up a false-flag attack in cyberspace and blame it on Russia.
Can anyone give Ray the name and contact info for a U.S. “mainstream” journalist who might be interested in any of the above?