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.
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 )
The evidence was FBI documents, but lickspittle media played it down. 10 days later, Bob had a stroke. The media lickspittle continued to prevail so I wrote:
While still on active duty, Karen had a catbird seat at the Pentagon watching U.S. and Israeli officials manufacture the fraudulent case for invading and occupying Iraq. That disinformation was fed to the White House, Congress, media, and American public and greased the skids for war on Iraq, the rise of ISIS, and widespread chaos in the Middle East. For her part, Karen took considerable risk in helping Knight Ridder journalists Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel get this sordid story straight before the attack on Iraq.
This remarkable pre-Iraq-war period is accurately depicted in Rob Reiner’s film, Shock and Awe, in which professional actors, including Reiner, play the roles of Karen, Landay, Strobel, et al.. Since Karen’s friends, including us, her close VIPS colleagues, had no need to know, we did NOT know — until several of us saw a special showing of the film together, and we were shocked and awed, so to speak, by what our VIPS colleague Karen’s had dared to do (including her tradecraft in doing it). Only at the end of the film did she come forward to identify herself. She was nominated and selected for the Sam Adams award for that year (2018).
A Sam Adams Laureate
Exactly three years ago, on December 8, 2018, Karen was formally given the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence (samadamsaward.ch). Karen’s award ceremony, at the Festival Center in Washington, DC, was a particularly warm affair. Paul Williams ( paul@shootfirstpictures.com ) did a particularly good job filming it.
NOTE: Please skip down past the amateur hand-held video bearing the title “17th annual Sam Adams Award”. Rather scroll down to the video under: “RELATED ARTICLES Karen Kwiatkowski Receives 2018 Sam Adams Award” to see the complete professional video by Paul Williams of that uplifting celebration three years ago.
Below is the citation accompanying the Sam Adams award to Karen:
Karen Kwiatkowski
Know all ye by these presents that Karen Kwiatkowski is hereby honored with the traditional Sam Adams Corner-Brightener Candlestick Holder, in symbolic recognition of her courage in shining light into dark places.
“If you see something, say something,” we so often hear. Karen Kwiatkowski took that saying to heart.
She saw her Pentagon superiors acting as eager accomplices to the Cheney/Bush administration’s deceit in launching a war of aggression on Iraq. And she said something — and helped Knight Ridder reporters Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay see beneath the official lies and get the sordid story right before the war.
Karen’s courage brings to mind the clarion call of Rabbi Abraham Heschel against the perpetrators of an earlier war — Vietnam. “Few are guilty,” he said, “but all are responsible. Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself.” Karen would not be indifferent to evil.
Ed Snowden, Sam Adams awardee in 2013, noted that we tend to ignore some degree of evil in our daily life, but, as Ed put it, “We also have a breaking point and when people find that, they act.” As did Karen. As did 16 of Karen’s predecessors honored with this award.
With all the gloom and doom enveloping us, we tend to wonder whether people with the conscience and courage of Ed or Karen still exist in and outside our national security establishment. Our country is in dire need of new patriots of this kind.
Meanwhile, we call to mind the courageous example not only of Karen and Ed, but also of Coleen Rowley and Elizabeth Gun, our first two awardees, who took great risks in trying to head off the attack on Iraq. And we again honor Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange who is now isolated in what the UN has called “arbitrary detention,” for exposing the war crimes resulting from that war.
Karen Kwiatkowski has made her own unique contribution to this company of conscience and courage, and Sam Adams Associates are pleased to honor her.
Presented this 8th day of December 2018 in Washington by admirers of the example set by the late CIA analyst, Sam Adams.
How easy it has become to see through the transparently thin straw-men U.S. leaders enjoy knocking over, with the full-throated support and applause of what passes for the media. Here, predictably, is The NY Times this morning: “Biden Threatens Putin With Sanctions if Russia Invades Ukraine.”
So, put aside the all-important question: why would Putin, or anyone in their right mind, want to invade Ukraine? But, you ask, what else would he do with those “175,000 troops” our “intelligence” says are near the border? What else but invade Ukraine?
Can Putin’s plan be thwarted? Of course, and Joe Biden is just the man to face down Putin AND every last one of his 175,000 troops; there are just too many of them to escape detection by satellite imagery by hiding in Potemkin villages. No, Putin, you better not invade, or else!
Fred Hiatt to the Columbia Journalism Review 02/2004: “In editorials, we state as flat fact that [Saddam] has WMD. If that’s not true, it would have been better not to say it.” Robert Parry: “Yes, if something isn’t real, we’re not supposed to say it is.”
