Losing Focus

                                                    

 By Reginald Johnson      

  It’s a shame that the important news coming out of the summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump about the US and Russia beginning to patch up their relationship and avoid nuclear catastrophe has been buried amid the furor over Trump’s comment doubting whether Russia was responsible for meddling in the 2016 election.

  After years of a declining relationship between Russia and the United States the leaders of the two countries met in Helsinki and had what they both said were constructive talks dealing with nuclear nonproliferation and other key geopolitical issues.

   Speaking at a press conference following the summit, Putin said that the talks had been “very successful and very useful.”

   He added, “The difficulties and tensions between the two countries do not have any objective grounds. The Cold War is over. The times of ideological confrontation are in the past and the situation in the world is drastically changed.”

   Putin continued that only by the US and Russia “standing together” can the world overcome issues of nuclear proliferation and regional conflicts.

   Trump said that the leaders had a “deeply open and productive dialogue and it went very well.”

  The president added, “The disagreements between our two countries are well known and President Putin and I discussed them at length today,” Trump said. “If we’re going to solve many of the problems we face in the world then we’re going to have to find ways to cooperate in pursuit of shared interests.”

  Together the US and Russia hold 90% of all the nuclear weapons in the world. According to the American Federation of Scientists, the United States has 4000 nuclear warheads and the Russian Federation has 4300.

  A nuclear conflict between Russia and the United States, should it ever break out, would be the ultimate catastrophe. There would be no winner. For those who might escape the immediate effects of a nuclear attack, they wouldn’t live long due to massive radiation fallout and nuclear winter. All life on the planet would be effectively ended.

  Negotiations between the US and Russia are imperative to avoid a potential Armageddon.

Hiroshima, Japan in August, 1945 after US dropped an atomic bomb. Today's nuclear warheads are far more powerful. (Photo- metro.co.UK)

  
Donald Trump did the right thing by going to Helsinki and meeting Putin. He followed in the footsteps of many presidents before him who have met with Russian leaders to work out agreements on arms control and conflict resolution.

   By the accounts of the two leaders, the summit went well and was a step towards improving US Russian relations and avoiding catastrophic conflict.

   But that important  news was all lost amid the furor --- really hysteria --- over an inept comment Trump made during the press conference when he was responding to a question about who was responsible for the alleged hacking  of Democratic Party emails during the 2016 election campaign.

   Trump said he wasn’t sure whether the US intelligence agencies were correct in their assessment that the Russians were responsible for the hacking, and not someone else. He seemed to indicate that he believed Putin’s firm denial that the Russian government had any role.

   Immediately, there was an avalanche of criticism. Political leaders on both sides of the aisle and many in the media blasted Trump for appearing to take sides with the Russians over the word of US intelligence.

   A number of Democratic politicians as well as some media pundits went so far as to call Trump’s performance “treasonous.”

   Former CIA Director John  Brennan said Trump’s performance “rises to and exceeds the threshold for high crimes and misdemeanors,” which under the Constitution justifies impeachment. “It was nothing short of treasonous,” he said.

  US Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, said that the United States was now facing “a 9/11 type emergency” due to Trump’s performance at the summit.

   In truth, much of the criticism and comments about “treason” were way over the top and in the case of members of the media, totally unprofessional.

  There is no question President Trump said a really dumb thing. But it was more a political blunder than a factual misstatement.

   In point of fact, Trump has every reason to doubt the accuracy of the claims about Russian hacking and election meddling. To this date, nothing --- nothing --- has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Russians were behind the much-talked about hacking of Democratic National Committee emails in 2016.

   The main foundation for claims of Russian hacking came out of an Intelligence Community Assessment in early 2017 which blamed the Kremlin for directing the theft of the emails and then turning over the information to WikiLeaks for publication. The revelations about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, such as the effort by the DNC to undermine the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, was damaging to the Clinton campaign and helped Trump in the polls.

   The ICA, as it is known, authorized by then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, used a “handpicked group” of analysts from the big three intelligence agencies, namely the CIA, FBI and NSA, to investigate the hacking claim. The ICA did not represent , as was erroneously reported at the time, a community-wide assessment by all 17 intelligence agencies.

   The assessment drew on the findings of an investigation by a private firm, CrowdStrike. The FBI itself did not do its own investigation of the hacking, after DNC officials first reported there had been an intrusion, as the agency was denied access to the email server by the DNC. Even though the agency clearly had the power to subpoena the email server, as this was a national security case, the FBI decided not to do so. Instead it agreed with the Democrats to let CrowdStrike do the inquiry.

 CrowdStrike’s founder is both friendly with the Democrats and also a member of the anti-Russian, neocon Atlantic Council.

  The CrowdStrike findings, which maintain that the email metadata showed evidence of hacking by Russian operatives, has been strongly disputed by cyber experts such as John McAfee and former intelligence officials from the NSA, FBI and CIA.   

  Critics of the report contend that instead of the emails being hacked,  there was actually a download of email information by a disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporter on the DNC staff who then turned over the information to WikiLeaks.

   It is disturbing that the email download scenario never got any attention from the FBI.

   Even the ICA report does not claim to be definitive in showing that the Russians committed hacking.

  “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information which is often incomplete or fragmentary as well as logic argumentation and precedents,” the report said.

 The recent indictment of 12 Russian military officials for their role in the hacking case also does not constitute firm evidence of Russian intrusion in the US election since these are allegations and have not been aired before a jury. There’s been no conviction. It also should be noted that the indictment document relies again in part on the disputed CrowdStrike findings.

   It is very dismaying that so many politicians and media types alike are waving the indictment around as if it’s final proof of Russian guilt. I saw Shepard Smith on Fox News the other day doing that, saying that Trump was wrong to express misgivings about who was responsible for the hacking because we now have "proof" of Russian involvement due to the indictment.

   Come on Mr. Smith, go back to the dictionary and find out what an indictment is.

  President Trump has every right to be skeptical about the intelligence community findings, due to the flawed ICA, together with the mounting evidence coming from a recent inspector general’s report and congressional testimony showing that FBI officials carried a heavy political bias against Donald Trump as they conducted their investigation of both the possible Russian hacking and collusion between the Trump campaign in Russia.

  It’s well known that both Clapper and Brennan disliked Trump and played a key role in drumming up support for an investigation of collusion which led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. This has all been part of an effort to drive Trump from the presidency, either through impeachment or resignation. Pro-war neo cons and major press outlets have backed this campaign.

   So far, Mueller has not been able to charge anyone connected with Trump for conspiring with the Russians to influence the election.

   Politically, Trump made a very stupid mistake in openly questioning the intelligence agencies.  And he paid a dear price.

   Needless to say, the hyper controversy about Trump’s comment has totally overshadowed the much more significant development coming out of the summit, which is that nuclear-armed United States and nuclear-armed Russia have begun to start working cooperatively again on the issue of proliferation and resolving regional conflicts.

   This effort should be supported widely and not undermined by the continued blather about Trump-Russia collusion and Russian hacking.

  Endless repetition of unproven claims about collusion and mindless vilification of Russia just serves to impede the peace process and make the possibility of a catastrophic war more likely.

   It’s too bad many progressives and members of the Democratic Party have endorsed the Russia-gate narrative. But it’s time to change focus. Russia-gate is a waste of time and a distraction from dealing with the more central issues important to this country.

 There are plenty of very potent political issues upon which to wage a campaign to elect somebody better than Trump. Russia-gate is not one of them. A determined campaign centered around Medicare-for-all, establishing an equitable tax system, and slashing the bloated defense budget to provide money for education, new infrastructure and job training might well elect someone good.

   However flawed Donald Trump is as a president on a wide range of issues, he’s doing the right thing to try to broker better relations with the Russian Federation. The stakes are too high not to make the effort.

   Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at NYU and one of the leading scholars on Russia, told Tucker Carlson of Fox News this past week that he was stunned by what he called the “mob violence” atmosphere in the reaction to Trump’s comments at the summit press conference.

   Warning that relations between the US and Russia had hit a dangerous new low, Cohen said it’s imperative to get a better relationship going.

   He offered this question and comment: “Do you prefer to try to impeach Trump to trying to avoid war with nuclear Russia? That’s the bottom line. That’s where we’re at today.”

  

  

  

  

  

  

An Opening for Peace

                               

By Reginald Johnson

    Prospects for peace on the war-torn Korean Peninsula got a big boost at the historic summit just concluded between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

    In a head-to-head meeting in Singapore, the two leaders pledged to establish new US-North Korea relations for “peace and prosperity” and “the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.”

  In a joint statement the two leaders stated that “President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

  While the details of what the US will promise in the way of security guarantees is not spelled out in writing,  Trump indicated in a press conference following the completion of the meeting that the US and South Korea would halt war games, or military training exercises, which have taken place frequently and have always created alarm for the North Koreans. Trump accurately described the war games as “provocative.”

  The US president also said in response to a reporter’s question that there could be a pullback of US troops in South Korea, depending on how well the negotiations for denuclearization are proceeding. The US has some 35,000 troops in South Korea and a large number of military bases.

     

President Trump meets Kim Jong Un of North Korea at summit in Singapore (Time)

   Trump and Kim seemed to get along and the atmosphere at the summit by all appearances was positive.

  With a smiling Kim Jong Un sitting next to him, Trump said, “We are very proud of what took place today. I think our whole relationship with North Korea and the Korean Peninsula is going to be a much different situation than it has been in the past.”

  What a change this all represents from where the United States and North Korea were just eight months ago when Kim was firing off nuclear test missiles and Trump was warning him to stop and belittling Kim as “Little Rocket Man.”

   The new atmosphere is also an improvement over the period of icy relations between the two countries during the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

  Of course, as many critics have already pointed out, there is no certainty that this summit will really lead to anything, since North Korea has pledged in the past to scale back their nuclear program, and then reneged on it. It will obviously take a long time -- many months and possibly years -- before a solid agreement will be worked out, outlining both a verifiable program of denuclearization by North Korea and the guarantees the US will provide to ensure North Korea's security.  But Trump indicated that negotiations on details of a full agreement are set to begin very soon.

     Trump --- with a big assist from South Korean President Moon Jae --- deserves credit for making this summit happen and moving US-North Korea relations onto a positive track. There is ample reason to criticize Trump as a president for his handling of numerous issues, particularly on the domestic side, but he’s done a good thing at this summit and taken a big step towards dealing with one of America’s most intractable problems in foreign affairs.

  Let’s hope the summit fulfills its promise and finally brings peace and more prosperous times to the people of both North and South Korea. Time will tell.

   

 

                      

Blocking Detente

By Reginald Johnson

                                          

   There’s a possibility for making a better relationship between the United States and Russia, but the knives are out.

    U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met last week in Hamburg, Germany and had what appeared to be a very constructive meeting. The two discussed a range of issues including the war in Syria, the battle against terrorism, cyber security and the charges of Russian meddling in the US presidential election last year.

    The two leaders were able to strike an agreement for a cease-fire in a section of Syria and coordinate with each other in the battle against ISIS. They agreed to disagree on the claim of Russian hacking.

   According to Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University, the Trump-Putin  meeting may augur a new day in Russia-US relations.

  Cohen said the meeting represented a “potentially historic new détente, anti-Cold War partnership begun by Trump and Putin.”  He noted that the relations between the two nuclear-armed superpowers are at their lowest point in decades.

  “What we saw today was potentially the most fateful meeting between an American and Russian president since the wartime (World War II),"  said Cohen, who witnessed the Reagan-Gorbachev summit meetings in the 1980s.  “The reason is the relationship between the US and Russia is so dangerous.”

   But Cohen, speaking on the Tucker Carlson show on Fox television on Friday,  hours after the meeting, cautioned that the proposed new partnership will likely come under “vicious attack.”

   How right he was. Over the next few days there was a fierce pushback. On Sunday,  three longtime critics of Trump and Russia took to the airwaves to criticize Trump’s performance in Hamburg and blast the idea of a partnership.

  Neo-con senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said it made no sense to forge a new agreement with Russia without punishing Russia first for the alleged cyber attacks in the US election last fall.

  They and others keep insisting that Russian responsibility for the hacking is flat fact, despite serious doubts raised by a number of cyber experts, the fact that the report on the hacking was done not by the FBI but by a company hired by the Democratic National Committee,  the fact that the company’s  chief technical officer is an anti-Putin Russian émigré and the fact that a full National Intelligence Estimate on the hacking,  involving all 17 intelligence agencies, was never done (contrary to assertions by many politicians and the media).

  Speaking on the NBC show “Meet the Press,” Graham said Trump gave a “terrific speech” in Poland earlier in the week on his European trip, but then had what he called a  “disastrous meeting” with Putin in Germany.   The senator said the president has a “blind spot” on Russia and his attitude that we should  “forgive and forget when it comes to Putin regarding cyber attacks is to empower Putin and that is exactly what he is doing.”

  McCain criticized Trump’s tweet over the weekend that he “looked forward to working constructively with the Russians” --- actually, a thoroughly laudable goal, in my view.

  But McCain demanded that Putin must pay a stiff price for the claimed hacking. “Otherwise he’ll be encouraged to do it again,” he said.

  John Brennan, former director of the CIA, also appeared on “Meet the Press” and made similar criticisms about the alleged hacking and Trump’s seeming soft attitude towards it.

   ( I have to digress a bit here. It’s amazing how discredited figures like Brennan can be trotted out by NBC to weigh in as esteemed authorities on issues of law and proper behavior. Under Brennan , the CIA conducted drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that killed many civilians --- a breach of international law. The agency also used unlawful interrogation techniques, including torture, in dealing with prisoners in the years following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. When a Senate committee began investigating the torture claims, the CIA was reluctant to cooperate and in fact spied on the Senate staff investigators by hacking  (yes, hacking!)  into their computers. But now those days are over and Brennan is suddenly an expert analyst on TV, inveighing against hacking by Russia.)

 As typified by the “Meet the Press” show hosted by Chuck Todd --- who did not bring in a guest who offered a more favorable view of Trump’s Hamburg meeting – the media coverage of the Hamburg meeting, Putin and Russia in general has been decidedly negative.

   On Friday evening, NBC reporter Richard Engel hosted a show called “On Assignment” which presented a scathing, and very one-sided report on Putin and Russia. Basically, he and the guests on the show portrayed Russia as a criminal state where Putin operated as a Mafia boss working with wealthy oligarchs. The show described numerous mysterious killings that have taken place in Russia and outside, in which dissidents and government critics have been murdered. Some of the stories were chilling and had the ring of truth.

However, Engel presented little in the way of countervailing theories in his piece on  the various murders as well as the bombing of an apartment building which killed hundreds of people, and which critics say was ordered by Putin. Government officials were not given any chance to rebut the claims of illegality. Putin was painted from beginning to end as a brutal killer who can’t be trusted.

While some of the claims of Russian government criminality may be true, I have to be skeptical when a reporter is portraying a person or officials as having committed acts of gross illegality or murder but does not bother to give the accused a chance to respond.

 Given the one-sided presentation and the timing of the show --- aired on the evening of the day of the Trump-Putin meeting – the show came across as a hit piece designed to undermine any notion that working with Russia or Putin was a worthwhile goal.

  The avalanche of criticism of Trump and Putin from both Republicans and Democrats continued on Monday on shows like MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”  hosted by bitter Trump critics Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski.

So the demonization of Russia, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump goes on, undermining the prospects of a more positive and less dangerous relationship between the superpowers. Given the size of the two nations’ nuclear arsenals and the areas of the world that could be flashpoints for conflict between the U.S. and Russia, like Syria and Ukraine, that is a shame.