Truthdig
What Happened to Russiagate?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_happened_to_russiagate_20170418/
Posted on Apr 18, 2017
By Robert Parry / Consortiumnews
(https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/16/what-russia-gate-has-wrought/)
Michael Vadon / Wikimedia
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donald_Trump_Laconia_Rally,_Laconia
,_NH_4_by_Michael_Vadon_July_16_2015_03.jpg)
Democrats, liberals and some progressives might be feeling a little
perplexed over what has happened to Russiagate, the story that pounded
Donald Trump every day since his election last Novemberuntil April 4, that
is.
On April 4, Trump fully capitulated to the neoconservative bash-Russia
narrative amid dubious claims
(https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/05/another-dangerous-rush-to-judgment-in
-syria/) about a chemical attack in Syria. On April 6, Trump fired off 59
Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase; he also restored the neocon demand
for regime change in Syria; and he alleged that Russia was possibly
complicit in the supposed chemical attack.
Since Trump took those actionsin accordance with the neocon desires for
more regime change in the Middle East and a costly New Cold War with
RussiaRussiagate has almost vanished from the news.
I did find a little story
(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/us/politics/russia-investigation-cyprus-
mike-quigley.html?_r=0) in the lower right-hand corner of page A12 of
Saturdays New York Times about a still-eager Democratic congressman, Mike
Quigley of Illinois, who spent a couple of days in Cyprus which attracted
his interest because it is a known site for Russian money-laundering, but he
seemed to leave more baffled than when he arrived.
The more I learn, the more complex, layered and textured I see the Russia
issue isand that reinforces the need for professional full-time
investigators, Quigley said, suggesting that the investigations failure to
strike oil is not that the holes are dry but that he needs better drill
bits.
Yet, given all the hype and hullabaloo over Russiagate, the folks who were
led to believe that the vague and amorphous allegations were bigger than
Watergate might now be feeling a little used. It appears they may have been
sucked into a conspiracy frenzy in which the Establishment exploited their
enthusiasm over the scandal in a clever maneuver to bludgeon an
out-of-step new President back into line.
If thats indeed the case, perhaps the most significant success of the
Russiagate ploy was the ouster of Trumps original National Security Adviser
Michael Flynn, who was seen as a key proponent of a New Détente with Russia,
and his replacement by General H.R. McMaster, a protégé of neocon favorite,
retired Gen. David Petraeus.
McMaster was viewed as the key player in arranging the April 6 missile
strike on Syria and in preparing a questionable intelligence assessment on
April 11 to justify the rush to judgment. Although McMasters four-page
white paper has been accepted as gospel by the mainstream U.S. news media,
its many weaknesses
(https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/14/did-al-qaeda-fool-the-white-house-aga
in/) have been noted by actual experts, such as MIT national security and
technology professor Theodore Postol.
How Washington Works
But the way Official Washington works is that Trump was made to look weak
when he argued for a more cooperative and peaceful relationship with Russia.
Hillary Clinton dubbed him Vladimir Putins puppet and Saturday Night
Live portrayed Trump as in thrall to a bare-chested Putin. More
significantly, front-page stories every morning and cable news segments
every night created the impression of a compromised U.S. President in
Putins pocket.
Conversely, Trump was made to look strong when he fired off missiles against
a Syrian airbase and talked tough about Russian guilt. Neocon commentator
Charles Krauthammer praised Trumps shift
(http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/04/07/krauthammer-syria-airstrikes-presiden
t-trump-message-assad-russia-iran) as demonstrating that America is back.
Trump further enhanced his image for toughness when his military dropped the
GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), nicknamed the mother of
all bombs, on some caves in Afghanistan. While the number of casualties
inflicted by the blast was unclear, Trump benefited from the admiring TV and
op-ed commentaries about him finally acting presidential.
But the real test of political courage is to go against the grain in a way
that may be unpopular in the short term but is in the best interests of the
United States and the world community in the longer term.
In that sense, Trump seeking peaceful cooperation with Russiaeven amid the
intense anti-Russian propaganda of the past several yearsrequired actual
courage, while launching missiles and dropping bombs might win praise but
actually make the U.S. position in the world weaker.
Trump, however, saw his fledgling presidency crumbling under the daily
barrage of Russiagate, even though there was no evidence
(https://consortiumnews.com/2017/03/29/the-sleazy-origins-of-russia-gate/)
that his campaign colluded with Russia to interfere with the U.S. election
and there wasnt even clear evidence that Russia was behind the disclosure
of Democratic emails, via WikiLeaks, during the campaign.
Still, the combined assault from the Democrats, the neocons and the
mainstream media forced Trump to surrender his campaign goal of achieving a
more positive relationship with Russia and greater big-power collaboration
in the fight against terrorism.
For Trump, the incessant chatter about Russiagate was like a dripping water
torture. The thin-skinned Trump fumed at his staff and twittered messages
aimed at changing the narrative, such as accusing President Obama of
wiretapping Trump Tower. But nothing worked.
However, once Trump waved the white flag by placing his foreign policy under
the preferred banner of the neoconservatives, the Russiagate pressure
stopped. The op-ed pages suddenly were hailing his decisiveness. If you
were a neocon, you might say about Russiagate: Mission accomplished!
Russiagates Achievements
Besides whipping Trump into becoming a more compliant politician, Russiagate
could claim some other notable achievements. For instance, it spared the
national Democrats from having to confront their own failures in Campaign
2016 by diverting responsibility for the calamity of Trumps election.
Instead of Democratic leaders taking responsibility for picking a dreadful
candidate, ignoring the nations anti-establishment mood, and failing to
offer any kind of inspiring message, the national Democrats could palm off
the blame on Russia! Russia! Russia!
Thus, rather than looking in the mirror and trying to figure out how to
correct their deep-seated problems, the national Democrats could instead
focus on a quixotic tilting at Trumps impeachment.
Many on the Left joined in this fantasy because they have been so long
without a Movement that the huge post-inaugural pussy hat marches were a
temptation that they couldnt resist. Russiagate became the fuel to keep the
Movement bandwagon rolling. #Resistance!
It didnt matter that the scandalthe belief that Russia somehow conspired
with Trump to rig the U.S. presidential electionamounted to a bunch of
informational dots
(https://consortiumnews.com/2017/03/19/nyts-tinfoil-hat-conspiracy-theory/)
that didnt connect.
Russiagate also taught the American left to learn to love McCarthyism
since proof of guilt pretty much amounted to having had contact with a
Russianand anyone who questioned the dubious factual basis of the scandal
was dismissed as a Russian propagandist or a Moscow stooge or a purveyor
of fake news.
Another Russiagate winner was the mainstream news media which got a lot of
mileageand loads of new subscription moneyby pushing the convoluted
conspiracy. The New York Times positioned itself as the great protector of
truth and The Washington Post adopted a melodramatic new slogan:
Democracy Dies in Darkness.
On Thanksgiving Day, the Post ran a front-page article
(https://consortiumnews.com/2016/11/27/washington-posts-fake-news-guilt/)
touting an anonymous Internet group called PropOrNot that identified some
200 Internet news sites, including Consortiumnews.com and other major
sources of independent journalism, as guilty of Russian propaganda. Facts
werent needed; the accused had no chance for rebuttal; the accusers even
got to hide in the shadows; the smear was the thing.
The Post and the Times also conflated news outlets that dared to express
skepticism toward claims from the U.S. State Department with some
entrepreneurial sites that trafficked in intentionally made-up stories or
fake news to make money.
To the Post and Times, there appeared to be no difference between
questioning the official U.S. narrative on, say, the Ukraine crisis and
knowingly fabricating pretend news articles to get lots of clicks. Behind
the smokescreen of Russiagate, the mainstream U.S. news media took the
position that there was only one side to a story, what Official Washington
chose to believe.
While its likely that there will be some revival of Russiagate to avoid the
appearance of a completely manufactured scandal, the conspiracy theorys
more significant near-term consequence could be that it has taught Donald
Trump a dangerous lesson.
If he finds himself in a tight spot, the way out is to start bombing
(https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/07/trumps-wag-the-dog-moment/) some
enemy halfway around the world. The next time, however, the target might
not be so willing to turn the other cheek. If, say, Trump launches a
preemptive strike against North Korea, the result could be a retaliatory
nuclear attack against South Korea or Japan.
Or, if the neocons push ahead with their ultimate regime change strategy
of staging a color revolution in Moscow
(https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/07/key-neocon-calls-on-us-to-oust-putin/
) to overthrow Putin, the outcome might benot the pliable new leader that
the neocons would wantbut an unstable Russian nationalist who might see a
nuclear attack on the U.S. as the only way to protect the honor of Mother
Russia.
For all his faults, Trump did offer a more temperate approach toward
U.S.-Russian relations, which also could have tamped down spending for
nuclear and other strategic weapons and freed up some of that money for
infrastructure and other needs at home. But that was before Russiagate.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories
for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest
book, Americas Stolen Narrative, either in print here
(https://org.salsalabs.com/o/1868/t/12126/shop/shop.jsp?storefront_KEY=1037)
or as an e-book (from Amazon
(https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Stolen-Narrative-Washington-ebook/dp/B009RX
XOIG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350755575&sr=8-1&keywords=americas+stolen+narra
tive) and barnesandnoble.com
(http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/americas-stolen-narrative-robert-parry/1113
515681?ean=2940015517552) ).
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