STEPHEN F COHEN—Media malpractice has various elements—among them, selective use of facts, some unverified, highly questionable narratives or reporting based on those “facts,” mingled with editorial commentary passed off as “analysis,” buttressed by carefully selected “expert sources,” often anonymous, and amplified by carefully chosen opinion page contributors. Throughout is the systematic practice of excluding developments (and opinion) that do not conform to the Times’ venerable motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” When it comes to Russia, the Times often decides politically what is fit and what is not. And thus the most recent but exceedingly important example.
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I’m A Pro-Putin Anti-“Putinist” And It’s About Time That Alt-Media Acknowledges That We Exist
ANDREW KORYBKO—For the record, President Putin is indeed a “Zionist” in the sense that he vehemently supports “Israel’s” “right to exist” as the “historical homeland” of global Jewry and has done more in recent years to ensure its survival than even the US has (i.e. forcing Iran to withdraw 140 kilometers from the occupied Golan Heights and therefore preventing the Islamic Republic and its allies from using that position to lob rockets at the “Jewish State”), but he isn’t the type of “Zionist” who supports abuses against the Palestinian people and the ethnic cleansing of them from their native lands because he’s repeatedly stated that he’s in favor of a so-called “two-state solution” that pushes “Israel” back to its pre-1967 borders.
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Did the US Steal Russia’s Hypersonic Weapons Secrets?
President Putin’s announcement in March that Russia was in possession of hypersonic weaponry was heralded as a strategic game-changer of the highest order because of the implication that the US’ decades-long “missile defense” investments were now suddenly rendered null and void, thereby restoring the nuclear balance that had been at risk of disruption by America’s moves to safeguard itself from a speculative nuclear second strike and theoretically one day give itself the prerogative to carry out a first one with impunity. Russia and the rest of the world were on track to become the victims of nuclear blackmail had this trend been allowed to continue uninterrupted, which is why Moscow’s development of hypersonic weapons technology was such a big deal.
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F.W. ENGDAHL: Why NATO Wants to Destroy Putin’s Russia—the Cold War that Never Ended
F W ENGDAHL—With even a primitive missile defense shield, the US could theoretically attack Russian missile silos and submarine fleets with far less fear of effective retaliation; the few remaining Russian nuclear missiles would be unable to launch a sufficiently destructive response. That, at least, was the idea behind US missile defense. It was not defensive in any way, rather extraordinarily offensive.
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