He is absolutely right about the historical demonization of Russia, which had its roots in the United States' relationship with the Soviet union.
He is absolutely right about the demonization of President Trump, the so-called Russiagate. There is no substance there, and
it is incredibly dangerous to cripple a president's ability to conduct foreign policy.
Undermining the presidency the way it is being done will have consequences for all future presidents, and could easily spell the end of the Republic as we know it. Politics is based on trust. If there is none, it will devolve into tyranny.
He is right about the fecklessness of the media. There is very little left of independent media. Nobody challenges the dominant narratives coming out of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and all of the want to be second-tier newspapers and all of the broadcast and Internet media that pick up material from such sources.
He is right about the lack of statesmanship at the highest levels of US government. He cites only one statesman in the halls of government: Rand Paul.
He is right about the absolute lack of scruples on the careerism of the high-level functionaries in government, singling out, very appropriately, John Brennan, James Clapper, and to a lesser extent James Comey.
He is right about the fecklessness of presidents Bush, both of them, Clinton and Obama. They either had no understanding of what their subordinates were doing, or had no ability to rein them in.
I strongly disagree with most of what Cohen writes about Ukraine. While Cohen's experiences with Russia and the United States, he has never lived here. I have lived here for 12 years, the period about which he presumes to know, and his account varies quite widely from what I observed and what I have heard from my Ukrainian friends and acquaintances. Being so egregiously wrong on the subject of Ukraine calls into question his credibility on all the other points. I agree with him, but has he really done his research? Is he, as accused, being taken in by Russian propaganda? I think to some degree he is.
This is a long review because it is a complex topic and because while I agree with most of Cohen's points I feel obliged to point out the areas in which I strongly disagree. Though I agree with most of what Cohen says about Russiagate, is being wrong about the history I know as a resident of Ukraine casts a long shadow of doubt.
Cohen closes with a point: "The once venerated American journalist Walter Lippmann observed, "when all think alike, no one is thinking." This is my modest attempt to inspire more thinking." Here, for your pleasure, is some of that additional thinking – contrarian, probably fewer will agree with me than with Cohen himself.
Ukraine
In May, 2019 in a 70% landslide Ukraine elected Volodymyr Zelenski, a Jewish comedian, to be president . The election gave the lie to a great many of Cohen's points:
There is no visible anti-Semitism here in Ukraine. The Jewish Zelinski defeated the half Jewish Poroshenko in a land that has only about a 1% Jewish population.
The Right Sector, about whom Cohen goes on endlessly for the threat they supposedly pose, was not a factor whatsoever in the election. They were not visible.
Zelinski's political godfather is Igor Kholomoisky, the richest Jewish oligarch in Ukraine. There are a number of Jewish oligarchs here, all corrupt. Ukraine is more dominated by Jews than any other country in Europe, and it is also more corrupt.
Jews dominate the parliament, the Verhovna Rada. With Zelinski's election a fellow named Groysman stepped down as prime minister. The position had been held by American friend Arseny Yatsenyuk. While there may be anti-Semitic mutterings, I know of no anti-Semitic incidents, and in fact the usual observation, by goy and Jewish friends alike, is that Jews run the place.
There are no Jewish fascists. The claim of neo-Nazis running Ukraine is a total canard. Fascists went extinct in 1945. Chasing fascist will of the wisps in 2019 only detracts from Cohen's other arguments. In fact, Ukraine is only tangential to his argument. It does not belong in this book.
I recommend two pieces of traditional wisdom to Cohen:
Everybody lies – you have to be skeptical across-the-board. Putin's Russia is the true heir of the Tsars and the Soviets. They use the same political techniques, including disinformation.
Do not attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. President Yanukovych was dumb. Bush II and Obama not much better.
Although Cohen goes on endlessly about Ukraine, it is not central to his argument about Russiagate. He would be better off without it. Therefore, I am including most of my Ukraine commentary as comments.
I totally agree with Cohen that the conviction of Paul Manafort is a political attack. Manafort's hands were undoubtedly somewhat dirty, but everybody involved in Ukraine has dirty hands. This is especially clear about the Biden family now. They undoubtedly took far more pelf out of Ukraine then Manafort did, and yet there is nobody laying a glove on them.
It is curious to see how muted Trump's support has been for the détente with Russia. Although as a candidate He advocated and the diminished involvement of America in wars, he has backed off.
Many such as Ann Coulter have lamented that the Jewish interests finally got control of them, one factor being son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump simply lacked an adequate outside organization to staff his administration.
Certainly others have been substantial campaign contributors such as Sheldon Adelson. Look now at Bolton and Pompeo, and look also at those he is needed, such as Lindsey Graham, who have always been are aligned with the neoconservatives. Trump could not escape the war party, and now appears to be its captive. Voices of reason – Rex Tillerson, Steve Bannon, General Flynn got rapidly pushed the sideline.
There simply Trump did not have the base required to put together an administration of people he could trust with views similar to his own and he seems to have capitulated to the pro-Jewish, and largely anti-Russian arm sentiments of those who provided his supporters. He seems to have had to give in on immigration, which is an issue that doesn't concern Cohen whatsoever, but which is a straw in the wind.
Cohen Repeatedly makes the point that international terrorism is the major danger in the world today. He says that they are a multinational force with assets usually available only to state actors. He repeatedly makes the point that Russia has suffered more from jihadist terrorism and has any other Western country. What does he mean? It cannot be Chechnya. No – he covers that separately. Aside from that, one does not remember too many incidents such as that in St. Petersburg.
Cohen repeatedly brings up the point of the anti-Russian paranoia of Brennan and Clapper. This anti-Russian paranoia has been a fixture and it has been documented that throughout this Soviet era and even going back to Custine's 1839
Letters from Russia
. America should be suspicious of Russia, but just because we're suspicious doesn't mean that the suspicious are well-founded, or that America is not guilty of misdeeds similar those committed by Russia.
Cohen makes the point that Putin is truly a moderate within Russia. There are hardliners to his right who will turn on Putin if he appears to be too soft on the United States. However high his approval ratings, Putin lives in the political environment in Russia just as Trump does in the United States. Putin's room to maneuver is limited when the United States does things like the Magnitsky Act or snubs him in Syria.
Citing evidence of Ukrainian complicity in the 2016 election, he says that the Clinton campaign was collecting "black" information on Trump from officials of the US backed Ukrainian government. Just this week it comes out that Manafort source Konstantin Kilimnik was not working for Putin, but was rather a longtime CIA source. Mueller should have known as much, and he should not have been dragged in as evidence against Manafort. Or Trump.
Accusations against Russia
Cohen is absolutely right to say that the Kremlin is wrongly accused of promoting white supremacist neo-Nazi movements in the West. One that sticks in my mind is the criticism of Marine Le Pen's National front for taking loans from a Russian bank. Quite simply, the establishment closed ranks to ensure that she could not get loans from banks that are tied in with the French establishment.
Likewise, the American right has very little to do with Russia, especially the alt right. Alt-Right blogger Brittany Pettibone took a trip to Moscow and displayed incredible naïveté in her interview with Alexander Dugan, Putin's pet philosopher and author of
The Fourth Political Theory
. It's true she was taken in (say I), but what is obvious is that she had no background whatsoever in what was going on in Russia. The alt right has no organization, a fact that is frustrating to friends and enemies alike. Nothing much to co-opt.
Cohen discusses democracy in Russia with Gorbachev. Gorbachev said that democracy is inevitable. 30 years later, I find this an interesting statement as democracy is on the wane in the United States and Europe. What Russia has it is a democracy in form but perhaps not practice. The same can be said for Ukraine. With the increasing suppression of a free press in the United States, Great Britain and Europe one can say as much for them. All of our future may more closely resemble China, who the totalitarians or the bureaucracy have immense control.
In any case, it is disingenuous for America to call Russia antidemocratic. They do have elections, and the elections are taken seriously by the citizens and although Putin has won the last few, this does not seem to be as thoroughly foreordained as under the Communists..
The polls showing Putin to be quite popular in Russia do not seem to be manipulated, or even capable of being manipulated given the relative openness of the press. This openness may wax and wane, but Putin's popularity has stayed pretty strong for most of the 20 years he's been in power.
Cohen claims that in the Skripal case, the nonfatal poisoning of a Russian immigrant and his daughter, not only are there no facts, there is no common sense. Putin had no possible motive, certainly not on the eve of the Russian presidential election to poison relations with the West. A couple of other English people affected by the same poison a few weeks later had nothing to do with the Russians. Lastly, why would Russia use an arcane method of assassination that could surely be traced to a state actor? And why would they be unsuccessful? Other intelligence agencies use simpler means – untraceable guns or staged car accidents.
He loses me when he returns to Ukraine, claiming "The snipers who killed scores of protesters have been conclusively demonstrated to be of the right sector. The demonstrators and the right sector itself were not well enough organized pull the sort of thing off. They did not hold the high ground from which the shots were fired. They were certainly not cohesive enough to contain the secret, should anybody have known that their comrades in arms murdered 100 fellow protesters. Cohen does not need this argument and he should not make it. The bloggers that coincides as his sources are not authoritative. He should apply the same standard to them that he would ask of Russiagate sources.
Another argument he should abandon is that the Odessa Trade Unions House tragedy can be attributed to the right sector. There are a number of accounts, and a great deal of conflict among them. Wikipedia does a pretty good job of laying them out. My take is that Russia attempted to foment insurrection, as they had done in the satellite states in Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, in Transniester, and in Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkiv, Mariupol and other Ukrainian regions. It is right out of the Soviet playbook. The scheme involves local actors, thugs, far enough removed that Russia has plausible deniability. In this case I will grant Russia their plausible deniability. To claim to know what happened, as Cohen does, is ludicrous.
Cohen's account of the war with Georgia in 2008 is somewhat one-sided. The Russians had certainly massed in South Ossetia in anticipation of some sort of a confrontation. Nonetheless, it appears they were successful in getting Shakshavili to launch the first attack, giving Russia the moral high ground. Cohen is certainly right that the media portrayed as entirely one-sided.
Cohen's account has Joe Biden looking like a corrupt fool for his meddling in both Russia and Ukraine. Right on both counts. He is not a smart man, and he was in over his head. It is no surprise to find that he and his son were engaged in lucrative, clandestine somewhat hidden ventures in Ukraine. He does not mention the rich donations to the Clinton Foundation by Ukrainian oligarchs such as Victor Pinchuk. There is corruption on both sides of the Atlantic.
A thesis that Cohen might investigate more deeply is that Obama in particular that George Bush and Obama were not terribly strong intellects. They were in the hands of the moneyed interests behind them. As if Obama switched courses and confused Russian politics, it may be that he was simply inept and was receiving conflicting signals from his supporters. The same can be said for John Kerry. The 2004 book
Unfit for Command
captures the sentiment of those who were in Vietnam at the time of his swiftboat service. Hillary Clinton herself is vicious but not too bright, as highlighted in the many books that have come out on her since the 1990s. The decision to eliminate Gaddafi appears to be one of her many blunders. As usual, and as Cohen notes, she chose the Russians as a scapegoat.
Cohen repeatedly makes the point, correct, that the United States, as well as France and Germany, betrayed Russia. They went back on the promises made to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward. Cohen rightly names the Council on Foreign Relations as a major culprit behind the new cold war with Russia. One can be proud of Cohen for resigning from the CFR as a matter of principle.
Stalin
Cohen gives Stalin the credit for successfully pushing the Nazis back. Other historians would say that Stalin, rather like Churchill and Hitler, hindered his military as much as helped them. It was the Soviet people, and that the course Ukrainians as well, who took the brunt of the fighting. Even with inept leadership, and sustaining huge losses, the Soviets, aided by Lend-Lease armaments from the United States, overwhelmed the Germans on the Eastern front.
Cohen is absolutely right to say "achieving elite or popular consensus about the profound traumas of the sorriest Soviet and post-Soviet pass remains exceedingly difficult, if not impossible." This is of course true in Ukraine as well.
Cohen gives Putin credit for a monument to Stalin's many victims. A word that does not appear in the book is Holodomor. The Ukrainians were singled out, even among the peoples of Russia. Moreover, it was led by Soviet Jew Lazar Kaganovich. Putin may forget; the Ukrainians do not.
Cohen does not do himself a favor when he lists climate change as one of the planet's biggest dangers. If he were to do a little investigation, he will find that the same characters or behind Russiagate, are inflating the climate change bogeyman. The science is not there. Cohen needs to turn his investigative skills toward this as well. Or, lacking such skills, he should probably simply not mention it.
Russia does not help its cause when it claims to be defending the interests of persecuted Russian speakers in Ukraine, the Baltics, and Moldavia, and Georgia. This is similar to Hitler's probably somewhat more justified claim to be protecting the ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland and in Poland, which had been taken from Germany and part of the Versailles Treaty. At any rate, the West is probably right to be suspicious of Russia's angry defense of the Russian-speaking minorities. Putin is wrong to assume that these Russian-speaking minorities have Russian sympathies. It was clearly not the case in Ukraine, as was demonstrated during the events of 2014. See my comments for more on the language issue.
Cohen's discussion of groupthink and the New York Times being on the wrong side of history, starting as early as 1920, is all true. A question that he does not address is the disproportionate number of Jewish editors and reporters in the American press in general and the New York Times in Washington Post in particular.
There was always a question as to what's in the interests of the Jews. One must remember that the Bolshevik revolution was largely a Jewish project. It served them well that New York Times be a bit disingenuous about the crimes of the Bolsheviks.
Politics makes odd bedfellows. The alt right, like Cohen, is properly skeptical. Paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan, Laura
Ingram, and Coulter and the like, are certainly going to be on his side. On the other hand traditional conservatives, and certainly neocons, seem to line up on the side of war – along with the so-called "liberals" – all supporting the interests of cheap labor through immigration, the defense industry, and Israel.
Cohen rightly attacks the credibility of the CIA. I recommend two books,
Deceits – My 25 Years with the CIA
by Ralph McGehee and
Legacy of Ashes – The History of the CIA
by Tim Weiner
Cohen talks about the "shock therapy" visited on Moscow by Washington in the 1990s which led to the creation of a small group of Russian billionaire oligarchs and the "globalization" of their wealth, lavishly between the United States and Russia.
As Amy Chua writes in world's on fire, most of them to emerge were Jewish.
B0034PQX3Q: World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
The fact that Putin squeezed Jewish oligarchs out is not incidental to the story. One of them, American Bill Browder, has been a chief instigator of the new cold war. This reviewer naïvely gave his book "Red Notice" a five-star review. It is a well done piece, but totally one-sided.
This concludes my review of parts of the book that did not primarily deal with Ukraine. In other words, the parts that I mostly agree with. The first several comments are my notes on Ukraine, which are quite critical. Cohen doesn't know this country, and he simply does not apply a proper degree of skepticism. To sum it up, Ukraine is run by Jewish oligarchs who recently got a Jewish comedian elected as president. They are not fascists! There are no fascists here. Putin had the bad luck to have feet deal him a totally corrupt palooka in the form of Yanukovych. Cohen correctly states that Putin detested him. So did everybody here. It was truly a popular uprising that caused him to leave.
In conclusion, I give Cohen four stars for having the courage to go against his brethren in the press, especially the extremely powerful Jewish contingent on both sides of the Atlantic. He would have a strong case if he never mentioned Ukraine. It would also be vastly more accurate.
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Top reviews from other countries
Benjamin King
Slightly misleading but good for new perspective.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 28, 2020
★MARIO2002002★
This is one book about the truth. Let's wake up!
Reviewed in Japan on May 22, 2022Anckarström
Wollt Ihr den nuklearen Krieg?
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