Democracy Now!
February 4, 2015
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, three prominent U.S. think tanks—the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs—issued a joint report urging the United States to provide Ukraine $3 billion in military assistance over the next three years. Former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott co-wrote the report. He’s now president of Brookings.
STROBE TALBOTT: In the context of what is happening in Ukraine today, the right way to characterize it is an act of war on the part of the Russian Federation. This means that there is going on in Ukraine today a literal invasion, not by—it’s not a proxy war. It’s a literal invasion by the Russian armed forces. It’s a literal occupation of large parts, well beyond Crimea, of eastern Ukraine. And it is a virtual annexation of a lot of territory other than just the Crimea. And in that respect, this is a major threat to the peace of Europe, to the peace of Eurasia, and therefore a threat to the interests of the United States and, I would say, a threat to the chances of a peaceful 21st century.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, now president of Brookings. Your response?
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, he’s much more than that. People need to drop their masks and say what their personal stake in this is. Strobe Talbott, whom I’ve known for years, was the architect of the American policy that led to this crisis. He was “the Russia hand,” as he called his memoir, under President Clinton, when the expansion of NATO toward Russia began.
Understand what he said—and the rollout of this report has been coming. And if you look at the signatures, these are the leaders of the American war party, the people who literally want a military showdown with Russia. Stop and think what that means. Stop and think what that means, as though Russia is going to back off. But the people who signed this report—and they’ve been bringing it out for days—are saying that the—he literally just said this—the future of the 21st century is at stake in Ukraine. Stop and think what that means. Then he went on to say things that are fundamentally untrue, that Russia has invaded and annexed eastern Ukraine. I mean, when the State Department was asked a few weeks ago, “Can you confirm the presence of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine?” the State Department, which misleads about this story all the time, said, “No, we cannot.” So what are—this is what I’m talking about the fog of war, where we’re being told Russia has annexed eastern Ukraine, the stake of the world is at—the future of the world is at stake here, and basically they’re calling for war with Russia.
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