Ray on Critical Hour 12/27/2021, 14 mins
Can Moscow’s pull-out of over 10,000 troops, announced Christmas morning, be seen as a gesture to help get U.S.-Russia talks off on the right foot on Jan. 10? By now it is clear that none of the usual suspects in the corporate media will hazard such a guess without an OK from Washington. ( See: https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2021/12/26/what-no-russian-invasion-of-ukraine/ )
Better to keep ringing changes on the main theme — the likelihood of a Russian “invasion” of Ukraine. Also, it might prove difficult to figure out how to spin a report of so many Russian troops going the wrong way.
This would be funny, were it not so important. Still, my short interview with “The Critical Hour” Monday evening started off on a somewhat jocular tone regarding those “Wrong-Way-Corrigan” Russian troops.
Not funny? Yes, really not funny. Moscow’s top civilian and military leaders are dead serious this time.
When U.S. and Russian representatives get together on Jan. 10, there will have to be new flexibility in Washington’s positions to address Moscow’s core interests. Otherwise, Europe will quickly become a much more dangerous place.
An element of flexibility can be seen in the Biden administration’s bow to Russia’s insistence that negotiations begin without delay — in less than two weeks at this point. A small concession, but not insignificant.
Another straw in the wind came yesterday when a White House spokesman said that the U.S. believes diplomacy is the most responsible path forward “even if we don’t get everything we want”. (See: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/28/politics/us-russia-security-talks/index.html )
What remains a bit puzzling is why corporate media have felt required, so far, to describe the motive behind Russia’s 10,000-plus troop withdrawal as “unclear”. In any case, this episode is proof positive of how tightly the media is controlled and thus how discombobulated they feel when “The Memo to Media” is late in coming. ( See: https://twitter.com/raymcgovern/status/1476002207870984192 )