David Kerans who writes for “Voice of Russia,” compared notes with Ray on July 8 before posting this article, which begins: “The wedge between Ukraine and Russia over how to handle unrest in the eastern regions of Ukraine is on the verge of producing a serious wedge between the US and Western Europe. The immediate catalyst for both of these wedges is, of course, the escalating aggression Ukraine’s government is visiting on its own population in the eastern regions of the country.”
Subject: “Ukraine: End of the Beginning,” July 8, 2014 (25 min.)
The bill, co-sponsored by more than 20 Republican Senators, was introduced on May 1 and was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. It is cast as reaction to events in Ukraine and lists a variety of measures to punish Russia and others, including providing lethal military aid for Kiev. The Russian titles appearing on the screen can be translated as “Divorced from Reality” and “Revolution by Order.”
Unanticipated bonus: after the interview, Ray’s bumper sticker – “God Bless the Rest of the World Too” caught the eye of the interviewer, Nina Vishneva. She told the photographer to capture the bumper sticker – and there it is at minute 2:21. Who knows? Maybe that short aphorism, the thought it conveys, and perhaps even the sticker itself will catch on elsewhere.
Signs of rigor mortis include NYT suppression before 2004 election of James Risen’s findings re gross violation of Fourth Amendment by NSA; Michael Hayden’s “loose construction” of the Fourth Amendment (w/video clip); cover-up by former NSA director Bobby Ray Inman; Ray getting beat up a few yards from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (w/video clip). Ray addressed several of these topics at a dinner talk to the Sarah McClendon Group at the National Press Club, July 2, 2014.
Andrew Kreig, one of the participants, took some notes and wrote up Ray’s remarks for his blog: “Justice Integrity Project,” July 7, 2014
Actions in Ukraine Erode Guarantees of 1994 Budapest Agreement
and
http://www.1tv.ru/news/world/258078
Channel One is one of three channels with nationwide reach in Russia, where most of the people get their news from national TV. Americans who depend on “mainstream media” for news, however, heard/read not a word about the VIPS Memorandum for the President:
They focus on the human cost of war as still more awful bloodletting looms – the inevitable result of the U.S. decision in 2006-07 to “surge” rather than broker real power-sharing among Shia, Sunni, and Kurds. (24 min)
At this point, a deus ex machina seems required to head off wider spread carnage.
Ray noted that in 1219 during the Crusades, Francis of Assisi sneaked into Cairo to talk with Saladin’s nephew Malik al-Kamil, then Sultan of Egypt, and emerged with the revolutionary idea that Christians can live harmoniously with Muslims.
Today’s Pope Francis, who has talked the talk about reaching out to Muslims, would do well to consider following in his namesake’s footsteps, getting on the Papal plane, and seeing if he might be instrumental in catalyzing the kind of Shia-Sunni-Kurd negotiations without which catastrophe in Iraq – and wider war – appear imminent.
(Sadly, there are all too few world leaders today with any plausible claim to moral authority.)
http://scotthorton.org/interviews/2014/06/23/062314-ray-mcgovern/
Because “attention must be paid,” special thanks to the BBC (via a faithful listener) for the below-linked sequence of 11 photos, which tell the story in a way words cannot. Do have a look.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/middle_east_shooting_in_tal_afar/html/3.stm
Moral Injury & the Killings of Tal Afar
Recall Rumsfeld’s feigned horror: “Some people think they can lie and get away with it!”