A Must Read If You Can.....

Our dangerous new McCarthyism: Russia, Noam Chomsky and what the media’s not telling you about the new Cold War

Perverse, diabolical obsession: Policy cliques in D.C. have no intention of desisting in this war until they win it

By Patrick L. Smith

It is time to attempt that hardest of things—to see ourselves for who we are, to see what it is we are doing and what is being done to us.

Two things prompt the thought. We have the latest news on Washington’s confrontation with Russia, and we have a newly precipitous decline in the national conversation on this crisis. In my estimation, we reach dangerous new lows in both respects.

One of the running arguments this past year has been just who started the trouble in Ukraine and who authors the hostility now prevailing between Russia and the West. Relying on half-truths, untruths, and the good old “power of leaving out,” the orthodoxy solidifies on the unsubstantiated presumption that Russia must be wrong, especially given Putin presides over it. No need of evidence; saying it is enough.

A few reporters and analysts who refuse to surrender their integrity—Robert Parry at Consortium News, Stephen Cohen at Princeton, a couple of others—marshal the plentiful and persuasive evidence of Washington’s responsibility: It extends back to the Soviet Union’s collapse. The Europeans are reluctant tag-alongs.

We can now comprehend Washington’s logic—a perverse, almost diabolical logic, Strangelovian logic. In last week’s column I used the term “monomania,” single-minded obsession. I hesitated to keep it in—too strong, I worried—but there was no need. The policy cliques in Washington have no intention of desisting in this war until they win it. Recognize this and you will find the prospect of hot war staring you down.

Incessant red-baiting, incessant Russia-baiting, incessant Islamophobia, incessant what have you: The deafening noise of jingoism and contempt for others’ perspectives renders people unable to think. Such people are no longer self-governing. They are the powerless subjects of masters. 

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~ Patrick Smith is the author of “Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century.” He was the International Herald Tribune’s bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote “Letter from Tokyo” for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications.