Prof Stephen F. Cohen on Russian hacking - WTF??
Last edited Fri Dec 16, 2016, 08:24 PM - Edit history (1)
Anyone been listening to Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen over the past few days? He's been going out of his way across various media sites to defend Putin against allegations that Russia, on Putin's orders, interfered in the US election to help Trump.
He spins it as being a skeptic on the widespread uncritical acceptance, as he sees it, of alleged reports from anonymous sources that the Russian government was behind the hacking. He claims that with this "new McCarthyism," in which anyone who questions the allegations for lack of evidence is essentially branded a traitor, we are at risk of provoking an all-out hot war with Russia. He says we should be having a debate about what America's stance toward Russia should be right now, but we aren't because everyone is jumping on the bandwagon attacking the Russians.
DEMOCRACY NOW Weds
AMY GOODMAN: Twenty seconds, Ken Roth.
KENNETH ROTH: Well, I’m all for talking with Putin, trying to cooperate with him. In fact, my New York Review piece argues that the key to Syria is for Trump to put pressure on Putin, because Assad wouldn’t be able to commit these atrocities without Putin’s active support. So, I’m—
STEPHEN COHEN: That’s not talking with Putin; that’s putting pressure on Putin.
KENNETH ROTH: And talk to him, too. And we never objected to the ongoing debate, the ongoing conversation, but it shouldn’t be in lieu of the kind of pressure, which is all that Putin listens to these days.
STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, for God’s sake. That’s all he listens to. And you base that on what? Your careful study—
^ This exchange was on Democracy Now, in which Ken Roth of the Human Rights Watch accused Russia, and Putin specifically, along with Syria's Assad of commiting war atrocities in Syria.
CNN Thurs
Here's my point, and what I've never seen in my life: that we have ratched it up to a moment so dangerous, at least as dangerous with Russia since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962--normally we have a national debate about what to do.... What are we talking about? It could be fiction. We don't know.
CNN last night
= new reply since forum marked as read
and in general supports it. Here's their list of articles tagged 'Putin':
https://www.thenation.com/keyword/vladimir-putin/
More her husband than anything else, but also Pro-Putin stuff from James Harden ("Now That They’ve Been Proven Wrong, Will Putin’s Demonizers Apologize for Their Slanders?", "Why Are the Media Taking the CIA’s Hacking Claims at Face Value?"
, and "leave Putin alone!" stuff from herself ("Putin Didn’t Undermine the Election—We Did
Our election system is embarrassing not for anything Putin allegedly did. Leaders of both parties, if they had any concern for the republic, would move expeditiously to reform our election laws."
