Foreign Policy Category Archive

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Seth Rich, Julian Assange and Dana Rohrabacher. Credit: Public domain/Gage Skidmore/ Flickr

Seth Rich, Julian Assange and Dana Rohrabacher - Will We Ever Know the Truth About the Stolen DNC Files?

Philip Giraldi • February 29, 2020

• 1,500 Words • 179 Comments • Reply

The media is doing its best to make the Seth Rich story go away, but it seems to have a life of its own, possibly due to the fact that the accepted narrative about how Rich died makes no sense. In its Iatest manifestation, it provides an alternative explanation for just how the information from... Read More

Anonymous Sources and the Guys and Gals Who Made the Iraq War a Reality Are Now Claiming That the Kremlin Is at It Again!

Philip Giraldi • February 27, 2020

• 1,400 Words • 36 Comments • Reply

Those hapless individuals who run the United States are again slipping into a fantasy world where Americans are besieged by imaginary threats coming from both inside and outside the country. Of course, it is particularly convenient to warn of foreign threats, as it makes the people in government seem relevant and needed, but one might... Read More

Why Both Republicans and Democrats Want Russia to Become the Enemy of Choice

Philip Giraldi • February 6, 2020

• 1,400 Words • 64 Comments • Reply

One of the more interesting aspects of the nauseating impeachment trial in the Senate was the repeated vilification of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. To hate Russia has become dogma on both sides of the political aisle, in part because no politician has really wanted to confront the lesson of the 2016 election, which... Read More

America's Long History of Meddling in Russia

Ted Rall • January 17, 2020

• 1,000 Words • 7 Comments • Reply

Russia — OK, not the actual Russian government but a private troll farm company located in Russia — bought $100,000 worth of political ads on Facebook designed to change the outcome of the 2016 election. Except that only a small fraction of those ads were political. Also except that the small fraction was divvied up... Read More

The Justice Department Is Devoid of Justice

Paul Craig Roberts • January 8, 2020

• 900 Words

In the United States the criminal justice (sic) system is itself not subject to law. We see immunity to law continually as police commit felonies against citizens and even murder children and walk away free. We see it all the time when prosecutors conduct political prosecutions and when they prosecute the innocent in order to... Read More

America on the Ropes

Paul Craig Roberts • December 20, 2019

• 800 Words

The impeachment proceedings orchestrated by the idiot House Democrats with the aid of the corrupt FBI, CIA, NSA and presstitute media have been a boon for Republican fundraising. Jews such as Schiff and Nadler have created the impression for the average gentile American that Jews do not accept that “Trump Deplorables” are qualified to elect... Read More

The Year of Manufactured Hysteria

C.J. Hopkins • December 18, 2019

• 2,200 Words • 72 Comments • Reply

Well, it looks like we’ve somehow managed to survive another year of diabolical Putin-Nazi attacks on democracy. It was touch-and-go there for a while, especially coming down the home stretch, what with Jeremy Corbyn’s desperate attempt to overthrow the UK government, construct a British version of Auschwitz, and start rounding up and mass-murdering the Jews.... Read More

John Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force

Could it become Obamagate?

Philip Giraldi • November 12, 2019

• 1,900 Words • 266 Comments • Reply

There is considerable evidence that the American system of government may have been victimized by an illegal covert operation organized and executed by the U.S. intelligence and national security community. Former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director Jim Comey appear to have played critical leadership roles... Read More

Inconvenient Truths

Alarming things we have learned under Trump, but not always about him.

Stephen F. Cohen • November 6, 2019

• 900 Words • 235 Comments • Reply

Almost daily for three years, Democrats and their media have told us very bad things about Donald Trump’s life, character, and presidency. Some of them are true. But in the process, we have also learned some lamentable, even alarming, things about the Democratic Party establishment, including self-professed liberals. Consider the following: The Democratic establishment is... Read More

Russia, Ukraine, and Donald Trump

Stephen F. Cohen • October 30, 2019

• 1,200 Words • 117 Comments • Reply

Cohen observes in his latest conversation with John Batchelor that the so-called Impeachment inquiry, whether formal or informal, will make the new Cold War even worse and more dangerous than it already is, noting that an inflection point has been reached, because at the core of these allegations—most of which are undocumented and a substantial... Read More

Telling the Truth Has Become an Anti-American Act

Paul Craig Roberts • October 30, 2019

• 1,100 Words

Stephen Cohen and I emphasize that the state of tension today between the United States and Russia is more dangerous than during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. For calling needed attention to the risk of nuclear war heightened by the current state of tension, both Cohen and I have been... Read More

Unasked Questions About US-Ukrainian Relations

Is US national security being trumped by loathing for Trump?

Stephen F. Cohen • October 3, 2019

• 800 Words • 212 Comments • Reply

The transcript of President Trump’s July 25 telephone conversation with Ukraine’s recently elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has ignited the usual anti-Trump bashing in American political-media circles, even more calls for impeachment, with little, if any, regard for the national security issues involved. Leave aside that Trump should not have been compelled to make the transcript... Read More

What We Still Do Not Know About Russiagate

Vital questions about perhaps the worst alleged presidential scandal in US history remain unanswered

Stephen F. Cohen • September 4, 2019

• 1,100 Words • 116 Comments • Reply

It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then president, Donald Trump that he “colluded” with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 presidential election—and, still more, that Vladimir Putin’s regime, “America’s No.... Read More

Does Israel Interfere in American Elections?

Ask Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib

Philip Giraldi • August 27, 2019

• 1,800 Words • 316 Comments • Reply

Does anyone remember what the Mueller investigation was all about? It was to determine whether the team surrounding candidate and then president-elect Donald Trump had colluded with a foreign power, presumed to be Russia. It did not discover any such collaboration to get Trump elected president, but it did discover a foreign nation that had... Read More

Who’s Afraid of William Barr?

Liberals and other Democrats seem to want to cover up the CIA’s role in Russiagate

Stephen F. Cohen • July 17, 2019

• 800 Words • Leave a Comment

William Barr, a two-time attorney general who served at the CIA in the 1970s, would seem to be an ultimate Washington insider. According to his Wikipedia biography, he has—or he had—“a sterling reputation” both among Republicans and Democrats. That changed when Barr announced his ongoing investigation into the origins of Russiagate, a vital subject I,... Read More

Does Trump Have the Balls to Hold the Deep State Accountable?

Paul Craig Roberts • July 9, 2019

• 400 Words

It is a known fact that the orchestration of Russiagate, a hoax perpetrated on the American people and the world by the military/security complex, Democratic Party, and US presstitutes, required high officials of the CIA, FBI, and Obama Department of Justice (sic) to commit felonies. We know what the felonies are and who committed them.... Read More

Ex-FBI, CIA Officials Draw Withering Fire on Russiagate

The Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr leans hard on Trump to unfetter investigators, all hell...

Ray McGovern • July 8, 2019

• 1,500 Words • 35 Comments • Reply

As Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic public... Read More

The Stories Are Beginning to Exceed Even the Gullibility of Americans

Paul Craig Roberts • June 15, 2019

• 400 Words

The past couple of days have seen interesting developments. The US or Israel struck a Japanese ship with small rockets and tried to blame it on Iranian mines. The Japanese ship owner put a halt to the false flag event. He pointed out that the damage was above, not below the water line and that... Read More

How Did Russiagate Begin?

Why Barr’s investigation is important and should be encouraged

Stephen F. Cohen • May 30, 2019

• 1,500 Words • Leave a Comment

It cannot be emphasized too often: Russiagate—allegations that the American president has been compromised by the Kremlin, which may even have helped to put him in the White House—is the worst and (considering the lack of actual evidence) most fraudulent political scandal in American history. We have yet to calculate the damage Russiagate has inflicted... Read More

The Disinformationists

C.J. Hopkins • May 15, 2019

• 1,300 Words • 90 Comments • Reply

So, the election-meddling Putin-Nazi disinformationists are at it again! Oh yes, while Americans have been distracted by Russiagate, Obstructiongate, Redactiongate, or whatever it’s being called at this point, here in Europe, we are purportedly being bombarded with Russian “disinformation” aimed at fomenting confusion and chaos in advance of the upcoming EU elections, which are due... Read More

Mueller’s Own Mysteries

Little-noted aspects of the first volume of the Mueller report

Stephen F. Cohen • May 1, 2019

• 900 Words • Leave a Comment

Special prosecutor Robert S. Mueller III’s two-volume “Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election” is not an easy read—not unlike those manuals that come boxed with “easy to assemble” multipart children’s toys on Christmas Eve. Nonetheless, considering the exceedingly damaging effects Russiagate has had on America at home and abroad... Read More

Why Is Maria Butina in Prison?

Ron Paul • April 29, 2019

• 600 Words • 9 Comments • Reply

Russian gun rights activist and graduate exchange student Maria Butina was sentenced to 18 months in prison last week for “conspiracy to act as a foreign agent without registering.” Her “crime” was to work to make connections among American gun rights activists in hopes of building up her organization, the Right to Bear Arms, when... Read More

Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America’s Real Foreign Agent

Philip Giraldi • April 25, 2019

• 1,400 Words • 57 Comments • Reply

[This column was written before Ms. Butina's Friday sentencing.] Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior advisor to the president. The Mueller Special Counsel inquiry is far from over even though a... Read More

The Conspiracy Against Trump

The Deep State plot to undermine the president

Philip Giraldi • April 23, 2019

• 1,500 Words • 436 Comments • Reply

The real “deplorable” in today’s United States is the continuation of a foreign policy based on endless aggression to maintain Washington’s military dominance in parts of the world where Americans have no conceivable interest. Many voters backed Donald J. Trump because he committed himself to changing all that, but, unfortunately, he has reneged on his... Read More

The Orchestration of Russophobia Is the Prelude to War

Paul Craig Roberts • April 22, 2019

• 600 Words

The Russian Embassy in Washington has prepared an accurate 121-page report, THE RUSSIAGATE HYSTERIA: A CASE OF SEVERE RUSSOPHOBIA. Everyone should read this report. It documents the fake news, lies, violations of diplomatic standards and international law, and gratuitous aggressive actions taken against Russia during the period beginning May 18, 2016 and continuing through the... Read More

Shadow Boxing for Empire: the Mueller Report

James Petras • April 22, 2019

• 1,000 Words • 4 Comments • Reply

Introduction By the end of the Obama regime, the US had gone through seven wars and was in the process of losing five of them. Washington was facing global challenges to its dominant economic and political role from Russia and China. The US adopted a dual response: to pursue a policy of reconciliation with regional... Read More

The Three Purposes of Russiagate

Paul Craig Roberts • April 22, 2019

• 1,600 Words

One is to prevent President Trump from endangering the vast budget and power of the military/security complex by normalizing relations with Russia. Another, in the words of James Howard Kunstler, is “to conceal the criminal conduct of US government officials meddling in the 2016 election in collusion with the Hillary Clinton campaign,” by focusing all... Read More

Will the Mueller Report Make the New Cold War Even Worse?

How the long-anticipated report addresses—or ignores—Russiagate allegations will be vital for US-Russian relations

Stephen F. Cohen • April 17, 2019

• 1,100 Words • Leave a Comment

Amajor theme of my recently published book War with Russia? is twofold: The United States is in a new Cold War with Russia, but one more dangerous, more fraught with possibilities of actual war, than was the 40-year Cold War the world survived. I began arguing the first proposition nearly 20 years ago, long before... Read More

Russian Military Expert Says Time for Russia to Prepare for War

Paul Craig Roberts • April 13, 2019

• 400 Words

Someone should speak to the Russian finance minister, Anton Siluanov, and put him in touch with reality. According to a RT news report, Siluanov has called for restoring economic and political ties between Moscow and Washington. Ties between the US and Russia were intentionally wrecked on purpose by the US military/security complex and its congressional... Read More

The Age of Injustice

Paul Craig Roberts • April 11, 2019

• 900 Words

April 11, 2019, brought us a new word for Judas: Moreno—the puppet president of Ecuador who sold Julian Assange to Washington for his 30 pieces of silver. This morning’s arrest of Assange inside the Ecuadoran embassy in London is the first stage in Washington’s attempt to criminalize the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Washington’s... Read More

Will Junta-Mastermind, John Brennan, Ever Face the Music?

Mike Whitney • April 8, 2019

• 1,900 Words • 10 Comments • Reply

The Great Russia Deception all began with John Brennan. It was Brennan who reported "contacts... between Russian officials and persons in the Trump campaign", just as it was Brennan who first referred the case to former FBI Director James Comey. It was also Brennan who “hand-picked” the analysts who stitched together the dodgy Intelligence Community... Read More

The Fictitious ‘Russian Attack’ vs. the Real Imperative to ‘Cooperate with Russia’

The Kremlin did not “attack America” in 2016, but the myth could lead to war between the nuclear superpowers

Stephen F. Cohen • April 3, 2019

• 1,400 Words • Leave a Comment

Today’s perilous reality is unprecedented and twofold. On the one hand, never have Washington-Moscow relations been so multiply fraught with the possibilities of war. American and Russian forces are in close and increasingly hostile military proximity from Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Georgia to Syria, and now possibly Venezuela. On the other hand, the “cooperation” and... Read More

Where Is the World Headed?

Paul Craig Roberts • April 3, 2019

• 1,200 Words

Since 2016 the United States has been in the Russiagate box, a hoax created by the US military/security complex to prevent President Trump from normalizing relations with Russia. Normalized relations would devalue THE RUSSIAN THREAT, an orchestration that protects the $1,000 billion annual budget of the military/security complex. The Democratic Party, which most certainly is... Read More

The Real Costs of Russiagate

Its perpetrators, not Putin or Trump, “attacked American democracy.”

Stephen F. Cohen • March 27, 2019

• 1,500 Words • Leave a Comment

The very few of us who publicly challenged and deplored Russiagate allegations against candidate and then President Donald Trump from the time they first began to appear in mid-2016 should not gloat or rejoice over the US attorney general’s summary of Robert S. Mueller’s key finding: “The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the... Read More

The Cold War Ides of March

US Cold Warriors escalate toward actual war with Russia

Stephen F. Cohen • March 20, 2019

• 1,500 Words • Leave a Comment

Heedless of the consequences, or perhaps welcoming them, America’s Cold Warriors and their media platforms have recently escalated their rhetoric against Russia, especially in March. Anyone who has lived through or studied the preceding 40-year Cold War will recognize the ominous echoes of its most dangerous periods, when actual war was on the horizon or... Read More

Even a Vacuous Mueller Report Won’t End ‘Russiagate’

Too many reputations and other interests are vested in the legend for it to vanish from American politics anytime soon

Stephen F. Cohen • March 14, 2019

• 700 Words • Leave a Comment

Russiagate allegations that the Kremlin has a subversive hold over President Trump, and even put him in the White House, have poisoned American political life for almost three years. Among other afflictions, it has inspired an array of media malpractices, virtually criminalized anti–Cold War thinking about Russia, and distorted the priorities of the Democratic Party.... Read More

The Long History of US-Russian ‘Meddling’

The two governments have repeatedly interfered in each other’s domestic politics during the past 100 years—and...

Stephen F. Cohen • March 6, 2019

• 1,100 Words • Leave a Comment

Even though the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee found “no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia,” Russiagate allegations of “collusion” between candidate and then–President Donald Trump and the Kremlin have poisoned American politics for nearly three years. They are likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future, due not... Read More

How the Russiagate Investigation Is Sovietizing American Politics

“Collusion,” “contacts,” selective prosecutions, coup plotting, and media taboos recall repressive Soviet practices

Stephen F. Cohen • February 20, 2019

• 1,000 Words • Leave a Comment

Having studied Soviet political history for decades and having lived off and on in that repressive political system before Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms—in Russia under Leonid Brezhnev in the late 1970s and early 1980s—I may be unduly concerned about similar repressive trends I see unfolding in democratic America during three years of mounting Russiagate allegations. Or... Read More

Do Russiagate Promoters Prefer Impeaching Trump to Avoiding War with Russia?

The year 2018 in the history of the new Cold War

Stephen F. Cohen • December 19, 2018

• 1,000 Words • Leave a Comment

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of politics and Russian studies at Princeton and NYU, and John Batchelor mark the fifth anniversary of their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen reflects on major developments in 2018, in part drawing on themes in his new book War with... Read More

Who’s Really ‘Undermining’ American Democracy?

Allegations that Russia is still “attacking” US elections, now again in November, could delegitimize our democratic...

Stephen F. Cohen • October 31, 2018

• 900 Words • Leave a Comment

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.) Summarizing one of the themes in his new book, War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine To... Read More

What the Brennan Affair Really Reveals

Valorizing an ex-CIA director and bashing Trump obscures what is truly ominous

Stephen F. Cohen • August 22, 2018

• 1,200 Words • Leave a Comment

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.) Ever since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, every American president has held one or more summit meetings... Read More

Russiagate’s ‘Core Narrative’ Has Always Lacked Actual Evidence

The unprecedented allegation that the Kremlin “attacked America” and “colluded” with its president in order to...

Stephen F. Cohen • June 20, 2018

• 2,000 Words • Leave a Comment

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (You can find previous installments, now in their fifth year, at TheNation.com.) Cohen reminds listeners that the Russiagate scandal, which first leaked into the media in mid-2016,... Read More

Forgotten Truths: On the Imperative of Cooperating with—Not Criminalizing—Russia

Cooperation with Moscow remains vital for American national security, but “Russiagate” allegations, now codified in...

Stephen F. Cohen • April 25, 2018

• 1,200 Words • Leave a Comment

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussion of the new US-Russian Cold War. (You can find previous installments of these discussions, now in their fifth year, at TheNation.com.) Cohen points out that for more than a decade Russia—certainly its state and leadership—has... Read More

‘Russiagate’ Allegations Continue to Escalate the Danger of War with Russia

Incessant Kremlin-baiting of President Trump is risking a Cuban missile–like crisis that he, unlike JFK in 1962, may...

Stephen F. Cohen • April 18, 2018

• 1,100 Words • Leave a Comment

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.) The Cuban missile crisis of 1962, Cohen points out, is widely regarded as a landmark event in... Read More

Russiagate as Historical Amnesia or Denialism

Many aspects of Russiagate are said to be unprecedented—which is very far from the truth

Stephen F. Cohen • February 28, 2018

• 1,300 Words • Leave a Comment

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-American Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Russians pride themselves on an awareness of “living history”—memories of past events whose recurrence or consequences continue... Read More

‘Russiagate’ Is Revealing Alarming Truths About America’s Political-Media Elites

Its allegations and practices suggest disdain for American institutions, principles, best interests, and indeed for the...

Stephen F. Cohen • February 21, 2018

• 1,500 Words • Leave a Comment

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) The nearly two-year-long series of allegations and investigations now known as “Russiagate” were instigated by top American... Read More

Russiagate Suddenly Becomes Bigger

Will every critic of our government policies soon be indictable?

Philip Giraldi • February 20, 2018

• 2,000 Words • 214 Comments • Reply

It’s hard to know where to begin. Last Friday’s indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies by Special Counsel Robert Mueller was detailed in a 37 page document that provided a great deal of specific evidence claiming that a company based in St. Petersburg, starting in 2014, was using social media to assess... Read More

Russiagate or Intelgate?

The publication of the Republican House Committee memo and reports of other documents increasingly suggest not only a...

Stephen F. Cohen • February 7, 2018

• 1,900 Words • Leave a Comment

Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen first raised the question of “Intelgate,” perhaps coining the word, in the first half of 2017. He... Read More

The American Bipartisan Policy Establishment Declares Its ‘Second Cold War’ vs. Russia After Years of Denying It

The most influential US foreign-policy membership society has issued a report affirming the new Cold War and its...

Stephen F. Cohen • January 24, 2018

• 1,300 Words • Leave a Comment

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen points out that he has been warning against a new Cold War since the early 2000s,... Read More

Why Russians Think ‘America Is Waging War Against Russia’

Russiagaters allege, with no evidence, that “Russia attacked America” in 2016, but many Russians believe—with...

Stephen F. Cohen • December 20, 2017

• 2,000 Words • Leave a Comment

Professor Emeritus of Politics and Russian Studies (at Princeton and NYU) Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen’s subject is both contemporary and historical. The most central, ramifying, and dangerous allegation of Russiagate is... Read More

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"Russiagate" Items Across Entire Archive

Category Classics

9/11 Was an Israeli Job

How America was neoconned into World War IV

Laurent Guyénot

• 384 Comments • Reply

John McCain and the POW Cover-Up

The “war hero” candidate buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam.

Sydney Schanberg

• 150 Comments • Reply

America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars