What’s Really Behind America’s “Russia Problem”

Via 21stCenturyWire.com,

RINSE AND REPEAT:

• Back in 1996, Time Magazine crowed about how a team of American “specialists” helped Boris Yeltsin get re-elected.

• In 2016, the US media flipped the script, now howling about how Vladimir Putin supposedly aided the Trump campaign.

“Russia helped Trump get elected!”, and “The Russians interfered in the 2016 US elections!”, and “The Russians have attacked our democracy!” etc.

Incredibly, these precepts still govern the parameters of political discourse for so many political and media operatives and these same beliefs have filtered down through to a large portion of the American electorate. But are they actually true, and why is it still forbidden to question any these sweeping statements? Is America’s reoccurring obsession fueling a permanent  case of western xenophobia against Russia?

The following video presents an insightful conversation between high-profile pundits with opposing views, with veteran US news anchorman, Dan Rather, joined by renowned expert in US-Russian relations, Dr Stephen F. Cohen, and his wife Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation magazine. Watch:

Towards the end of the discussion (around the 55 min mark), Dan Rather shows how he still holds firm to Official Washington’s conspiracy theory that the Trump campaign somehow colluded with the Russians, but that nonetheless – we should all withhold our final judgment until the much-anticipated Mueller Report was released. Well, not long after this discussion, the Mueller Report did come out – but unfortunately for Rather, and for so many other true believers in Russiagate’s political mythology, there was no evidence of any collusion or interference. Mueller attempted to prove ‘meddling’ by indicting mysterious GRU Russian hackers, but even this turned out to be a groundless accusation. Real Clear Investigations explains:

While the 448-page Mueller report found no conspiracy between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, it offered voluminous details to support the sweeping conclusion that the Kremlin worked to secure Trump’s victory. The report claims that the interference operation occurred “principally” on two fronts: Russian military intelligence officers hacked and leaked embarrassing Democratic Party documents, and a government-linked troll farm orchestrated a sophisticated and far-reaching social media campaign that denigrated Hillary Clinton and promoted Trump.

But a close examination of the report shows that none of those headline assertions are supported by the report’s evidence or other publicly available sources. They are further undercut by investigative shortcomings and the conflicts of interest of key players involved…

Sadly, even a decorated journalist and American institution like Rather could not free himself from the mainstream’s inbred media echo chamber, where most mainstream Establishment figures are still permanently wed to this national security state narrative. In the run-up to the 2020 Democratic Primaries, Rather continues to disseminate irrational fears that Putin is behind the latest political skirmishes between party front-runners – yet another example in a long line of evidence-free assertions which have appeared daily in western media since 2016.

A classic Russian ploy is to sow division and distrust between natural allies. So when you see overblown outrage trending on Twitter, ask yourself WWPW (what would Putin want) and maybe breathe and let the hashtag pass.

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) January 17, 2020

To any sober observer, all of this might sound like pure lunacy. But liberal America’s unhealthy fetish with Russia isn’t going away just yet and in fact, it continues to get worse, as the usual culprits now doubling-down on this losing formula in 2020.