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Trump Can Prove He's Not a Putin Puppet by Blowing Up the World
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/trump_can_prove_hes_not_a_putin_puppet_b
y_blowing_up_the_world_20170227/
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Posted on Feb 27, 2017
By Norman Solomon
(http://www.normansolomon.com/norman_solomon/2017/02/trump-can-prove-hes-not
-a-putin-puppet-by-blowing-up-the-world.html)
Maxwell Hamilton (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mualphachi/) / CC-BY-2.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
Four weeks into Donald Trump's presidency, New York Times columnist Paul
Krugman wrote
(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/opinion/the-silence-of-the-hacks.html?rr
ef=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman&action=click&contentCollection=opinion
Rion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=coll
ection&_r=0) that "nothing he has done since the inauguration allays fears
that he is in effect a Putin puppet." The liberal pundit concluded with a
matter-of-fact reference to "the Trump-Putin axis."
Such lines of attack have become routine, citing and stoking fears that the
president of the United States is a Kremlin stooge. The meme is on the
march-and where it will end, nobody knows.
Actually, it could end with a global nuclear holocaust.
The incessant goading and denunciations of Trump as a Kremlin flunky are
escalating massive pressure on him to prove otherwise. Exculpatory behavior
would involve setting aside possibilities for detente and, instead,
confronting Russia-rhetorically and militarily.
Hostile behavior toward Russia is what much of the U.S. media and political
establishment have been fervently seeking. It's also the kind of behavior
that could drag us all over the brink into thermonuclear destruction.
But c'mon, why worry about that?
For countless media commentators and partisan Democrats including many
avowed progressives-as well as for some Republican hawks
(https://standuprepublic.com/about-us) aligned with the likes of Sens. John
McCain and Lindsey Graham-the benefits of tarring Trump as a Russian tool
are just too alluring to resist.
To be clear: For a vast number of reasons, the Trump administration is
repugnant. And the new president's flagrant violations of the U.S.
Constitution's foreign and domestic emoluments clauses are solid grounds for
impeaching him. I'm glad to be involved with a nationwide petition
(https://impeachdonaldtrumpnow.org) campaign-which already has 890,000
signers-urging Congress to begin impeachment proceedings. We should go after
Trump for well-grounded reasons based on solid facts.
At the same time, we should refuse to be stampeded by the nonstop drumbeats
from partisan talking points and mainline media outlets-as well as "the
intelligence community." It wasn't mere happenstance when the Director of
National Intelligence, James Clapper, openly lied
(https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150508/18041530944/latest-explanation-j
ames-clapper-lying-about-essential-nsa-spy-program-he-forgot-about-it.shtml)
at a Senate committee hearing in early 2013, replying "No sir" to a pivotal
question from Sen. Ron Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all
on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" The lie was exposed three
months later when Edward Snowden made possible the release of key NSA
documents.
Yet now we're supposed to assume straight-arrow authoritative honesty can be
found in a flimsy 25-page report
(https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf) "assessing Russian
activities and intentions," issued in early January under the logo of
Clapper's Office of the Director of National Intelligence. That report has
been critiqued and demolished by one astute analyst after another
(https://theintercept.com/2017/01/25/seymour-hersh-blasts-media-for-uncritic
ally-promoting-russian-hacking-story/) .
As investigative journalist Gareth Porter noted
(https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/25/how-new-cold-warriors-cornered-trump/
) , "In fact, the intelligence community had not even obtained evidence that
Russia was behind the publication by WikiLeaks of the e-mails [of the]
Democratic National Committee, much less that it had done so with the
intention of electing Trump. Clapper had testified before Congress in
mid-November and again in December that the intelligence community did not
know who had provided the e-mails to WikiLeaks and when they were provided."
More broadly and profoundly, many cogent analyses have emerged to assess the
proliferating anti-Russia meme and its poisonous effects. For instance: "Why
We Must Oppose the Kremlin-Baiting Against Trump"
(https://www.thenation.com/article/why-we-must-oppose-the-kremlin-baiting-ag
ainst-trump/) by Stephen F. Cohen at The Nation; "The Increasingly Unhinged
Russia Rhetoric Comes From a Long-Standing U.S. Playbook"
(https://theintercept.com/2017/02/23/the-increasingly-unhinged-russia-rhetor
ic-comes-from-a-long-standing-u-s-playbook/) by Glenn Greenwald at The
Intercept; and "The Did-You-Talk-to-Russians Witch Hunt"
(https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/18/the-did-you-talk-to-russians-witch-hu
nt/) by Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews.
The frenzy to vilify Russia and put the kibosh on the potential for detente
is now undermining open democratic discourse about U.S. foreign policy-while
defaming advocates of better U.S.-Russia relations in ways that would have
made Joe McCarthy proud. So, President Trump's expressions of interest in
improving relations with Russia-among his few lucid and constructive
statements about anything-are routinely spun and smeared as corroborations
of the meme that he's in cahoots with the Russian government.
Many organizations that call themselves progressive are culpable. One of the
largest, MoveOn, blasted out an email alert on February 10 with a
one-sentence petition calling for a congressional investigation of
Trump-flatly declaring
(http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/investigate-trump-and-1) that he has
"ties to the Russian government."
Consider these words from President Trump at his February 16 news
conference:
* "Look, it would be much easier for me to be tough on Russia, but then
we're not going to make a deal. Now, I don't know that we're going to make a
deal. I don't know. We might. We might not. But it would be much easier for
me to be so tough-the tougher I am on Russia, the better. But you know what?
I want to do the right thing for the American people. And to be honest,
secondarily, I want to do the right thing for the world."
* "They're a very powerful nuclear country and so are we. If we have a good
relationship with Russia, believe me, that's a good thing, not a bad thing."
* "By the way, it would be great if we could get along with Russia, just so
you understand that. Now tomorrow, you'll say 'Donald Trump wants to get
along with Russia, this is terrible.' It's not terrible. It's good."
Rather than being applauded and supported, such talk from Trump is routinely
depicted as further indication that-in Krugman's words-Trump "is in effect a
Putin puppet."
And how could President Trump effectively allay fears and accusations that
he's a Kremlin flunky? How could he win cheers from mainstream newsrooms and
big-megaphone pundits and CIA headquarters? He could get in a groove of
decisively denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin. He could move U.S.
military forces into more confrontational stances and menacing maneuvers
toward Russia.
Such brinkmanship would occur while each country has upward of 4,000 nuclear
warheads deployed or stockpiled for potential use. Some are attached to
missiles on "hair-trigger alert"-which, the Union of Concerned Scientists
explains (http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/hair-trigger-alert) , "is a
U.S. military policy that enables the rapid launch of nuclear weapons.
Missiles on hair-trigger alert are maintained in a ready-for-launch status,
staffed by around-the-clock launch crews, and can be airborne in as few as
10 minutes."
Those who keep goading and baiting President Trump as a puppet of Russia's
government are making nuclear war more likely. If tensions with the Kremlin
keep escalating, what is the foreseeable endgame? Do we really want to push
the U.S. government into potentially catastrophic brinkmanship with the
world's other nuclear superpower?
Norman Solomon is the coordinator of the online activist group
RootsAction.org and the executive director of the Institute for Public
Accuracy. He is the author of a dozen books including "War Made Easy: How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death."
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