Robert Parry: Reagan-Style Hypocrisy and the Ukraine Crisis

[Catherina]

Reagan-Style Hypocrisy and the Ukraine Crisis

The mainstream U.S. news media has so fully bought into the U.S. government’s narrative on Ukraine that almost no one sees the layers of hypocrisy, an achievement in “group think” that dates back to Ronald Reagan’s war against “moral equivalence”
by Robert Parry

Official Washington’s hearty disdain for anyone who cites U.S. hypocrisy toward the Ukraine crisis can be traced back to a propaganda strategy hatched by the Reagan administration in 1984, dismissing any comparisons between U.S. and Soviet behavior as unacceptable expressions of “moral equivalence.”

...

This framing proved effective in tarring U.S. journalists and human rights activists as, in essence, Soviet apologists. The “theme” was most famously expressed by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick at the Republican National Convention in 1984 when she decried anyone who would “blame America first.”

...

Over the past three decades, the argument against “moral equivalence” has changed little, though it has morphed into what is now more commonly described as American “exceptionalism,” the new trump card against anyone who suggests that the U.S. government should abide by international law and be held to common human rights standards.

...

Suddenly, we see mainstream American journalists searching for some clause in Ukraine’s constitution that prohibits secession, though these journalists had no problem with the violation of the same constitution’s procedures for impeaching a president, rules ignored by the coup regime with barely a peep from U.S. news outlets.

....

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/12-2


Referenced in this article is Parry's excellent "Neocons and the Ukraine Coup" posted below

[reddread]

1. or any mention of a stolen election

in the United States of America.

[Catherina]

3. Our media is worthless. Pushing propaganda like the NYT's lie that Merkel said Putin was unhinged

...

As for the German chancellory, it's not exactly endorsing the Times's account. Die Welt, the German newspaper, reported that "The chancellery was not pleased with the reporting on the conversation. They claim that what the chancellor said was that Putin has a different perception on Crimea, which is why she is pushing for a fact finding mission on the matter."

Government spokesman Jens Alberts told Claudia Himmelreich, a McClatchy special correspondent, exactly what the government said on Monday: no comment on the contents of the chancellor's confidential phone conversations -- with either Putin or Obama. In defining the German view, Alberts said he would "not dwell on reports and rumors of someone claiming she possibly said this or that. However, what is undisputed is that President Putin has a completely different view of the situation and the events on Crimea than the German government and our western allies."

A different view. Obviously. But unhinged?

So if Merkel didn't portray Putin as unhinged, why would the unknown Obama aide tell the New York Times she did? Because in the world of propaganda, successfully portraying your adversary as being crazy, without any rational backing to his actions, makes it unnecessary to try to understand the complexities or sensitivities of the issues. If Putin is crazy, then that's enough. We needn't think any further about what he has to say. And if the New York Times says he's crazy, that's good enough for the dozens of reporters who've come along since, repeating the comment to their millions of viewers and readers as if it was a confirmed statement.

...

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/05/3975981/did-angela-merkel-really-say-putin.html

and not just dozens of reporters either, thousands of propagandists followed suite.

[reddread]

5. well at least we know they have multi-nation/theater capabilities

as do those happy campers on the banks of denial.

[Catherina]

9. Ted Rall nailed it a few weeks ago

in

What the US Media Won't Tell You About Ukraine

Four horsemen of the journalism apocalypse afflict overseas reporting:

- Journalistic stenography, in which attending a government press conference constitutes research.

- Kneejerk patriotism, where reporters identify with their government and are therefore less likely to question its actions, while reflexively assuming that rivals of the U.S. are ill-intentioned.

- Jack-of-all-trades journalism, in which the same writers cover too many different beats. A few decades ago, there would have been a bureau chief, or at least a stringer, who knew Ukraine and/or the former Soviet Union because he or she lived there.

- American ahistoricism, the widespread and widely acceptable ignorance of politics and history — especially those of other countries.

[reddread]

10. no wonder he is reviled in some circles

Im glad I gave him a shirt the one time I crossed his path.
I really want some of his originals.

[Catherina]

12. He always nails it. When was that?

Gawd, I better add this before trigger fingers trump up some bizarre alert that this cartoon is racist

About Ted Rall

Ted Rall is a syndicated cartoonist and columnist for Universal Press Syndicate. Author of 17 books, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and twice the winner of the RFK Journalism Award, Rall's cartoons and columns appear in The Los Angeles Times, MAD Magazine, Medium.com and numerous other online and print publications. His next book is "After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You As Honored Guests: Unembedded in Afghanistan" (Hill & Wang, March 25, 2014).

http://rall.com/comic/sovereignty

[reddread]

13. 2006

http://rall.com/searchablearchives?g2_itemId=6613

[Catherina]

15. Brilliant! I never saw that one before so thanks

Totally brilliant!

[reddread]

16. that one should be on my living room wall

damned shame on me that it isnt.

[Catherina]

17. Not on my wall

but I printed it out and put it in my Political Cartoons Album. It makes for great conversations when people come over. I'm looking forward to his next one.

[reddread]

18. hahahahah

I have a copy of it about 30 inches across.
totally inspired to own the original,
just not inspired enough...

[Catherina]

19. How much do they run? Inspiration lol

[reddread]

20. well

the listed price was like 1200 for strips like that,
but a substantial discount was offered or mentioned at some point.
I would value something like that, or especially less sentimental favs around
450-600 myself, but I dont recall seeing any Ralls crossing the block on the open market.
Well worth an inquiry, but as I believe he said they have lots of production art aspects, not simply
a pen and ink proposition.
Dont ask me about the early Doonesbury I blew off. First week Duke strip bitching about John Denver.
I'll go Hunter Thompson on myself. Sold for $300 on ebay about 12 years ago...
ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh nooooooooooooooooo, hand me tissue.

[Catherina]

22. You sound very serious about this

Best of luck getting your hands on the ones you want.

[reddread]

25. those days are done, but thank you.

I have been lucky. frequently foolish.
and almost perpetually obsessed.
thankfully, the wealthier (that would be EVERY other) collecting fools
and ever increasing costs (probably reflecting the $'s worth more than art's value)
have priced me out of the hobby, and I can get back to other
unfinished interests.
I do like a good storytelling artist.
Rall is a sharp cookie.

[sabrina 1]

24. Stop that, you are attacking 'credible sources'! The ones who lied us into Iraq, just doing

their duty for the Corporate state and here we silly Democratic Voters thought that stealing elections and going to war based on lies, and droning and 'laws' covering the crimes of War Criminals and those who violated their oaths to defend and protect the US Constitution, were important issues, in a Democracy.

Get with the progam, we no longer care about these things, it's about WINNING, dammit!

Whatever that means ....

[Catherina]

30. Attacking? Not at all, just exposing something so blatant it caused a furor in Germany

but here in the US? Not a ripple, not a retraction. Not even an apology, just move on to the next lie.

Over and over again.

[Catherina]

2. Robert Parry: Neocons and the Ukraine Coup

Neocons and the Ukraine Coup
February 23, 2014

Exclusive: American neocons helped destabilize Ukraine and engineer the overthrow of its elected government, a “regime change” on Russia’s western border. But the coup – and the neo-Nazi militias at the forefront – also reveal divisions within the Obama administration, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

....

Obama’s Strategy

As President, Obama has sought a more cooperative relationship with Russia’s Putin and, generally, a less belligerent approach toward adversarial countries. Obama has been supported by an inner circle at the White House with analytical assistance from some elements of the U.S. intelligence community.

But the neocon momentum at the State Department and from other parts of the U.S. government has continued in the direction set by George W. Bush’s neocon administration and by neocon-lite Democrats who surrounded Secretary of State Clinton during Obama’s first term.

...

Stirring Up Trouble

Now, you have Assistant Secretary of State Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan, acting as a leading instigator in the Ukrainian unrest, explicitly seeking to pry the country out of the Russian orbit. Last December, she reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves.”

The Kagan family includes other important neocons, such as....

...

Again, the American neocons had performed the role of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, unleashing forces and creating chaos that soon was spinning out of control. But this latest “regime change,” which humiliated President Putin, could also do long-term damage to U.S.-Russian cooperation vital to resolving other crises, with Iran and Syria, two more countries where the neocons are also eager for confrontation.

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/23/neocons-and-the-ukraine-coup/

[ProSense]

6. Robert Parry has a very creative imagination: Obama neocon buster

Robert Parry has a very creative imagination: Obama neocon buster
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024629463

I'll repost here:

What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis

March 2, 2014

Special Report: The Ukrainian crisis – partly fomented by U.S. neocons including holdovers at the State Department – has soured U.S-Russian relations and disrupted President Obama’s secretive cooperation with Russian President Putin to resolve crises in the Mideast, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

President Barack Obama has been trying, mostly in secret, to craft a new foreign policy that relies heavily on cooperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin to tamp down confrontations in hotspots such as Iran and Syria. But Obama’s timidity about publicly explaining this strategy has left it open to attack from powerful elements of Official Washington, including well-placed neocons and people in his own administration.

The gravest threat to this Obama-Putin collaboration has now emerged in Ukraine, where a coalition of U.S. neocon operatives and neocon holdovers within the State Department fanned the flames of unrest in Ukraine, contributing to the violent overthrow of democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych and now to a military intervention by Russian troops in the Crimea...Though I’m told the Ukraine crisis caught Obama and Putin by surprise, the neocon determination to drive a wedge between the two leaders has been apparent for months, especially after Putin brokered a deal to head off U.S. military strikes against Syria last summer and helped get Iran to negotiate concessions on its nuclear program, both moves upsetting the neocons who had favored heightened confrontations.

<...>

The neocons were dealt another setback in 2008 when Barack Obama defeated a neocon favorite, Sen. John McCain. But Obama then made one of the fateful decisions of his presidency, deciding to staff key foreign-policy positions with “a team of rivals,” i.e. keeping Republican operative Robert Gates at the Defense Department and recruiting Hillary Clinton, a neocon-lite, to head the State Department...From the start, however, Obama was opposed by key elements of his own administration, especially at State and Defense, and by the still-influential neocons of Official Washington. According to various accounts, including Gates’s new memoir Duty, Obama was maneuvered into supporting a troop “surge” in Afghanistan, as advocated by neocon Frederick Kagan and pushed by Gates, Petraeus and Clinton.

<...>

For instance, Secretary of State Kerry came close to announcing a U.S. war against Syria in a bellicose speech on Aug. 30, 2013, only to see Obama pull the rug out from under him as the President worked with Putin to defuse the crisis sparked by a disputed chemical weapons attack outside Damascus....Similarly, Obama and Putin hammered out the structure for an interim deal with Iran on how to constrain its nuclear program. But when Kerry was sent to seal that agreement in Geneva, he instead inserted new demands from the French (who were carrying water for the Saudis) and nearly screwed it all up. After getting called on the carpet by the White House, Kerry returned to Geneva and finalized the arrangements...Obama’s unorthodox foreign policy – essentially working in tandem with the Russian president and sometimes at odds with his own foreign policy bureaucracy – has forced Obama into faux outrage when he’s faced with some perceived affront from Russia, such as its agreement to give temporary asylum to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden....Obama had to express strong disapproval of Snowden’s asylum, though in many ways Putin was doing Obama a favor by sparing Obama from having to prosecute Snowden with the attendant complications for U.S. national security and the damaging political repercussions from Obama’s liberal base.

- more -

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/02/what-neocons-want-from-ukraine-crisis/

In this tale, Obama is secretly fighting the neocons for years, and is now secretly allied with Putin. He's batting down attempts by Kerry to start a war (I mean, obviously Kerry is pushing war by working on diplomatic solutions in the Syria and Ukraine situations, and even with Iran).

Obama has to put up a face of "faux outrage" to preserve this secret alliance and his desire to prevent war at all cost. Everyone, including those in his own administration, are plotting to sabotage his foreign policy. To date, Obama has stepped in to save the day.

All of this likely explains this bizarre commentary:

Robert Parry (on the MSM's propaganda)- "Putin or Kerry: Who’s Delusional?"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024617842

More on the Ukraine situation:

Analysis: Why Russia's Crimea move fails legal test
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024623531

Ukraine: Human rights monitors urgently needed as journalists and activists face wave of attacks in Crimea
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024625921

[sabrina 1]

27. Are you seriously throwing Robert Parry under that now infamous, Liberal crowded

bus? One of the hero journalists of the Left?

Can you provide us with some 'credible' sources please?

I keep asking, but no one is answering.

[Laelth]

4. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[hughee99]

7. A very clever article...

it takes issue with the current administration's handling of the Ukraine issue by blaming past administrations for acting the same way. A great lesson for those who might have issues with something the current administration is doing but don't want to be called racists or Obama-haters for saying something.

[Catherina]

11. A wise tactic these days where truth sets the propagandists off the edge

To be fair, most of them haven't transcended the excitement of the cold war movies yet.

[malaise]

8. Two words

Freedom and democracy means whatever they decide it means at any given moment so Western coups are good and any other coups are bad.
Just ask the Placidyl loving late Chief Justice Rehnquist who was given the position even though he had been hooked on that drug for the nine years between 1972 and the end of 1981. That's who Reagan appointed to head the Supreme Court. That's who gave Bush the US Presidency.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2005/09/rehnquists_drug_habit.html

As we usher the 16th chief justice of the United States to his celestial reward, let us remember him in full. He labored successfully to return power to the states, treated colleagues with warmth and respect, was said to be a gregarious boss, and, inspired by a judge's costume he saw in the performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, added four silly gold stripes to each sleeve of his judicial robe.

And for the nine years between 1972 and the end of 1981, William Rehnquist consumed great quantities of the potent sedative-hypnotic Placidyl. So great was Rehnquist's Placidyl habit, dependency, or addiction—depending on how you regard long-term drug use—that by the last quarter of 1981 he began slurring his speech in public, became tongue-tied while pronouncing long words, and sometimes had trouble finishing his thoughts.

The parade of news stories and TV segments that followed Rehnquist's death made little mention of his affair with Placidyl. New York TimesSupreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse offered more than any reporter, but still just 57 words near the end of a 6,100-word story. The Boston Globemade a two-sentence mention. The Washington Poststory about his death ignored this chapter of his life, as did the Los Angeles Times.

[Catherina]

14. +1. Tons of us didn't recognize the US Supreme Court Selection result in 2000, Gore vs Bush Jr

Now that's real democracy for ya. Or so we're told. I can't wait for 4/14/2014, then we'll see some real pretzel contortions in action.

[cprise]

21. The difference was billions in foreign money and a lot of rioting

...and, of course, being a prospective US-garrisoned client state.

Our imperialism is always better than "theirs", whoever they may be.

[Catherina]

28. So is that their unspoken message to activists groups they crush here?

Get foreign financing and riot? And here I thought we were doing things democratically when we patiently waiting 4, then 8 years for elections to get Bush out. Our imperialism is always better, in other words "might makes right". You nailed it.

[cprise]

31. All you need is a mousy little voice whining about police brutality and $5,000,000,000

...and a "civil society" platform draped with Exxon and Chevron logos. Then after they start firebombing police, you hand out cookies to rioters (officially known as "protesters&quot .

So democratic. So authentic.

And of course, at home we are all supposed to regurgitate hate for Putin to blot out any intelligent discussion of what has actually gone down. Just clutch the pearls and hyperventilate while--quite ironically--uttering "corrupt! corrupt!!"

If neocon schemers are still able to send Americans into such a Pavlovian response, then Obama's presidency has failed. A conflict with Russia could wipe out whatever gains he's claimed so far and much more, too.

[Catherina]

32. Seems to be following our business model very well

First step : destroy a country, economically and if necessary, militarily or by coup.

Second step : send in the vultures to *reconstruct* what they destroyed in the first step, with loans to put the entire population of that country in a lifetime of debt.

Rinse and repeat with every country you can intimidate at the barrel of a gun.

and don't forget to demonize, demonize, demonize!

I think the neocons are especially furious that Russia took over the whole Crimea without a shot or a single death. If they tried to take over the Crimea there would have been a month of shock and awe, thousands of air sorties and hundreds of Tomahawk Missiles whizzing about. The entire infrastructure would have been wrecked, power Plants destroyed, bridges obliterated and train stations twisted into grotesque metal structures.

Dumb dumb but that's what you get when a bunch of Bush Bots are hanging around advising you, by your own choice and there's an army of propagandists online, on the media doing everything they can to attack, derail, whitewash, obstruct, shut up and censor.

However, I am indeed delighted to find out that my country is just rolling in the dough and we can afford to send billions here, billions there, build pipelines, cryogenic containers and sea vessels to transport liquified gas to Eurasia. SO MUCH MONEY! And here we are thinking we were broke. Austerity cuts aren't going to go very well over here for the next elections.

[Rex]

23. U.S. Corporate Media always does what is 'best for business'.

That is why we are a JOKE the world over in regards to 'freedom of the press'.

[Catherina]

29. A sad joke at the barrel of a gun. Turkey is locking up journalists left, right and center

Turkey is locking up journalists left, right and center, but you don't hear a word mentioned in our media, except maybe on page Z-99d.There were huge protests all over Turkey this week, millions in the streets and violent in Ankara. Again, not a word. It wouldn't be good for business lol. +1 Rex

[Purveyor]

26. kick. Thanks for posting. +1 eom

[woo me with science]

33. K&R

[fascisthunter]

34. Something to Chew on

kick

[KoKo]

35. Recommend...!