March 8, 2017
CounterPunch

The United States and the Russian Devil: 1917-2017

by William Blum

Conservatives have had a very hard time getting over President Trump's much-repeated response to Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly's calling Russian president Vladimir Putin "a killer". Replied Trump: "There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers. You think our country is so innocent?" . . .

Senator John McCain on the floor of Congress, referring to Putin, tore into attempts to draw "moral equivalency between that butcher and thug and KGB colonel and the United States of America." . . .

Since the end of World War 2, the United States has:

Attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically-elected.

Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.

Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.

Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.

Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.

Though not as easy to quantify, has also led the world in torture; not only the torture performed directly by Americans upon foreigners, but providing torture equipment, torture manuals, lists of people to be tortured, and in-person guidance by American instructors.

Where does the United States get the nerve to moralize about Russia? . . .

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"Election Rigging in Afghanistan and Iraq," The Wisdom Fund, September 28, 2004

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby," London Review of Books, March 23, 2006

"Carter Blasts US Policy on Palestinians," The Wisdom Fund, June 20, 2007

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Enver Masud, "Trump Won Because Mainstream News Failed," The Wisdom Fund, November 9, 2016

[One professor's database cites 81 attempts by the United States to influence elections in other countries, notably in Iran, Guatemala and Chile.--Nina Agrawal, "The U.S. is no stranger to interfering in the elections of other countries," The Wisdom Fund, December 21, 2016]

John McAfee: about blockchain, bitcoins and cyber security, February 23, 2017

Gilbert Doctorow, "Trump Retreats on Detente with Russia," consortiumnews.com, March 1, 2017

[It's the number that few in Washington want to talk about or even acknowledge: $6,000,000,000,000.

"America has spent approximately six trillion dollars in the Middle East," Trump observed.--Andrew J. Bacevich, "Trump and the Six-Trillion-Dollar Question," theamericanconservative.com, March 2, 2017]

[At its heart is the "deep state" - agents of the intel community, their media collaborators, and their amen corner in a Democratic party whose control of our permanent government is all but total.

At the heart of the case against Trump is what appears to be a Big Lie.--Patrick J. Buchanan, "The Beltway Conspiracy To Break Trump," antiwar.com, March 7, 2017]

Robert Parry, "Fresh Doubts about Russian 'Hacking'," consortiumnews.com, March 8, 2017

[Democrats and liberals have climbed into bed with the neocons to push the 'Russia-did-it' conspiracy theory as a way to 'get Trump,'--Robert Parry, "When 'Disinformation' Is Truth," consortiumnews.com, March 13, 2017]

Philip Giraldi, "A Soft Coup, or Preserving Our Democracy?," theamericanconservative.com, March 14, 2017

[We need to know who colluded with the Russians, if anyone did. But more critically, we need to unearth the deep state conspiracy to sabotage a presidency.--Patrick J. Buchanan, "Did Obama Plot To Sabotage Trump?," antiwar.com, March 24, 2017]

John Dower, "An American Century of Carnage," commondreams.org, March 28, 2017

[the open secret of Israeli influence is studiously ignored, even as presidential candidates prostrate themselves before the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. . . .

Congress is no different. It has given Israel's controversial Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a record-tying three invitations to address joint sessions of Congress--Robert Parry, "Why Not a Probe of 'Israel-gate'?," consortiumnews.com, April 20, 2017]

VIDEO: "Trump Associates & ISIS-Linked Vigilantes Are Attempting Coup in Indonesia," Democracy Now!, April 21, 2017

[Fortune Magazine typically rates it as the second most powerful lobby in the U.S--Alison Weir, "Introduction to the Israel Lobby," ifamericaknew.org, October, 2017]

Glenn Greenwald, "Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments," theintercept.com, December 30, 2017

Sue Surkes, "Kuwaiti Report: U.S. Gives Israel Go-Ahead to Kill Powerful Iranian General," ifamericaknew.org, January 1, 2018

[no one is more active in interfering in foreign governments and elections than the United States of America, most notably in Russia for the election of Boris Yeltsin in 1996, which was arranged by Washington, and more recently in Ukraine in 2014.--Philip Giraldi, "Russiagate Suddenly Becomes Bigger," unz.com, February 20, 2018]

[But meddling in other countries has been a favorite Washington pastime ever since William McKinley vowed to "Christianize" the Philippines in 1899, despite the fact that most Filipinos were already Catholic. Today, an alphabet soup of U.S. agencies engage in political interference virtually around the clock, everyone from USAID to the VOA, RFE/RL to the DHS -- respectively the U.S. Agency for International Development, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Department of Homeland Security. The last maintains some 2,000 U.S. employees in 70 countries to ensure that no one even thinks of doing anything bad to anyone over here.--Daniel Lazare, "The National Endowment for (Meddling in) Democracy," theamericanconservative.com, March 8, 2018]

[Forensic studies of "Russian hacking" into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computer. After examining metadata from the 'Guccifer 2.0' July 5, 2016 intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device.

Key among the findings of the independent forensic investigations is the conclusion that the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack.--Ray McGovern and Bill Binney, "Memo to the President Ahead of Monday's Summit," consortiumnews.com, July 15, 2018]

[Hillary Clinton did not lose the election due to Russian conniving. She lost it because so many Americans disliked and mistrusted her. When the truth about her rigging of the Democratic primary emerged, she deftly diverted attention by claiming the Russians had rigged the election. . . .

The neocon former US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, admitted her organization had spent $5 billion to overthrow Ukraine’s pro-Russian government.--Eric Margolis, "Madness in Helsinki," ericmargolis.com, July 21, 2018]

Ray McGovern, "Russia-gate: Can You Handle the Truth?," youtube.com, August 7, 2018

[Bianca Lewis, 11, has many hobbies. She likes Barbie, video games, fencing, singing… and hacking the infrastructure behind the world’s most powerful democracy.--Dave Lee, "Hacking the US mid-terms? It's child's play," bbc.com, August 11, 2018]

[Filmed inside the Capitol, this Grayzone special explores the National Endowment for Democracy, a taxpayer funded organization that has interfered in elections, mobilized coups, and orchestrated public relations campaigns against nations that resist Washington's agenda.--Max Blumenthal, "Inside America's Meddling Machine: The US Funded Group that Interferes in Elections Around the Globe," grayzoneproject.com, August 20, 2018]

Gareth Porter, "How the Department of Homeland Security Created a Deceptive Tale of Russia Hacking US Voter Sites," consortiumnews.com, August 28, 2018

"US meddling in Latin America: What CNN never let Rick Sanchez report," January 3, 2019

[Mueller and his posse have actually been prohibited from even asserting in public that it was a Kremlin operation by a U.S. District judge.--David Stockman, " Not Mueller Time -- At Last!," antiwar.com, July 25, 2019]

Andy Greenberg, "Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers," Doubleday (November 5, 2019)