[PJ] Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton, spoke with Fox News' Tucker Carlson for a second time this week Friday evening.
Cohen, one of the country's foremost experts on Russia, argued that the anti-Putin hysteria in Washington, D.C., is putting the United States in danger.
Carlson started the conversation by referencing Senator Marco Rubio's grilling of President-Elect Trump's pick for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, at his confirmation hearing earlier this week, particularly Rubio's question whether he considers Russian President Vladimir Putin to be a "war criminal."
"I was so struck by Rubio's insistence that Tillerson concede that he was," Carlson said. "Would America gain something, do you think, by an incoming secretary of state calling another head of state a war criminal?"
"No," Cohen answered flatly. "Because it would end what President-Elect Trump says he wants to do, and that's create a new policy toward Russia that we used to call detente -- cooperation."
The professor described the precarious state of affairs around the world as President Barack Obama prepares to leave office: "Perhaps the worst relationship with Russia in our time, [with] perils everywhere from the Baltics to Ukraine to Syria, to guys running around -- terrorists -- looking for radioactive material to make bombs, and if they set them off we won't be able to inhabit those places for a generation."
"Trump seems to understand this," Cohen continued. "He seems to understand that we can't deal with these problems without Russian cooperation."
The professor argued that "the bloody war" we're already seeing against Trump from the establishment in Washington is "partly because he wants to do this."
Cohen noted that he is not a partisan of Trump or a partisan of Putin. "I'm a partisan of American national security," he explained. "They say these things because they do not know what they're talking about. They don't know the dangers. They don't know Putin's real role in the world. He is far from the greatest threat to America."
He added, "the threat that Putin represents to the United States -- probably wouldn't make the top five. But they're testifying in Congress that it's number one. And this is a threat to our own national security."
Tucker, while conceding that he's not an expert on Russia, agreed with the professor, saying it "comports with common sense."
"It does seem like hysteria has seized D.C.," Carlson said.
"And we're in danger, as a result," Cohen concluded.
#1
He [Putin] is far from the greatest threat to America
I think it's the other way around. Barring some senile septuagenarians, they (both Dems & Rinos) underestimate Russia - thinking it's safe to use Russia to beat Trump over the head.
[Daily Caller] Bob Woodward backed Donald Trump in his ongoing feud against the U.S. intelligence community during a panel discussion on "Fox News Sunday."
"In Trump’s mind, he knows the old adage, ’once a C.I.A. man, always a C.I.A. man,’ and no one came out and said those people shouldn’t be saying those things," the Washington Post’s famed editor explained. "So act two is the briefing when this dossier is put out."
"I’ve lived in this world for 45 years where you get things and people make allegations," he continued. "That is a garbage document."
"It never should have been presented as part of an intelligence briefing, as you suggested -- other channels have the White House counsel give it to Trump’s incoming White House counsel."
Woodward emphatically stated the president-elect is "right to be upset about that, and I think if you look at the real chronology and the nature of the battle here, those intelligence chiefs who were the best we’ve had, who were terrific and have done great work -- they made a mistake here."
"When people make a mistake, they should apologize."
#6
You know what is fake news? The notion that the presenter of this YT vid, Mark Dice, is a "media analyst" - now that's fake news. He's a 911 truther and unhinged conspericy theorist. It appears his career as a gadfly is somewhere on the loonier side of his associates - Alex Jones and Jessie Ventura. CNN is a horrible product and it's anti-trump bias is undeniable. But the report in question has been fact checked and found to be legit. Sleezy yes...fake no. Smith is indeed a drama queen but his criticisim of Trump's presser reaction to CNN is shared by many "credible" sources.
#9
Seems that when your competition is down you shut up and let it play out. She is not very smart. Looking for a job is the only explanation that makes any sense.
#14
#7 49Pan: Shepard Smith can hardly hold back his hate for Trump Capitalism.
FIFY. Starting with the BP Gulf Oil spill I noticed that "Shemp" has a Pavlovian reaction -- reflexively attacking Big Business. He needs to go work for Mother Jones or Rolling Stone.
[National Review] They took extraordinary measures in a shaky case involving Trump but refused to help FBI investigations involving Hillary and the DNC.
In the heat of the fall campaign, the commentariat got its knickers twisted over Donald Trump’s vow that, if elected, he’d have his Justice Department appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, his political rival.
How remarkable, then, that the media is so indifferent to the revelation that, at the very same time, the Obama Justice Department was actively conducting an investigation of Trump. As I recounted in Wednesday’s column, the FBI reportedly had suspicions that Trump, or at least members of his "team," might be violating financial and banking laws. Upon poking around, the Bureau determined there was no "nefarious purpose" in the connection of a server in Trump Tower to at least one bank.
Yet the case was not dropped upon the finding of no criminality. Instead, apparently because the bank or banks involved were Russian, the matter was pursued as a national-security investigation under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Indeed, the investigation may well be ongoing. Reporting indicates that surveillance warrants were sought from the FISA court in June and October 2016. The first one is said to have "named" Trump himself (we don’t know if that means the government was targeting Trump for surveillance, or if his name was merely mentioned in the FISA application). That application was apparently so lacking that the FISA court refused to authorize it, even though that court is generally quite accommodating of government requests to conduct secret searches and eavesdropping. The court is reported to have granted a narrower application in October -- one that appears not to have named Trump. The court’s proceedings are secret, so this reporting cannot be confirmed. Perhaps someday Star Chamber proceedings will be opened to public scrutiny.
[DAWN] ARE we still too naive to determine our enemy? Certainly not, but only if we have common sense and we keep our eyes wide open. We must also keep in mind that the enemy is non-traditional, in the sense that it does not only want to encroach on our physical spaces, but also ideological, social, cultural and political ones, in order to disrupt the social fabric.
This enemy is more dangerous because it is internal; it lives within us and can hurt us from within. It can poison our thinking slowly, without being noticed. It wants to impose certain religious, ideological and social agendas against the collective will and order of the people. It employs violence to achieve its goals. Sometimes it only incites violence and creates an enabling environment for its violent ideological brothers.
The state has to take constitutional, legal and security measures to deal with its enemies. But when our state functionaries appear to have lost the ability to recognise the enemy within us, it can be inferred that the enemy has accomplished its job. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
This enemy is more dangerous because it is internal; it lives within us and can hurt us from within. It can poison our thinking slowly, without being noticed. It wants to impose certain religious, ideological and social agendas against the collective will and order of the people. It employs violence to achieve its goals. Sometimes it only incites violence and creates an enabling environment for its violent ideological brothers.
The state has to take constitutional, legal and security measures to deal with its enemies. But when our state functionaries appear to have lost the ability to recognise the enemy within us, it can be inferred that the enemy has accomplished its job.
I only wish a Senator had delivered this exact speech on the floor of the US Senate several years ago.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[National Review] They took extraordinary measures in a shaky case involving Trump but refused to help FBI investigations involving Hillary and the DNC.
