by Eric Zuesse



Two days later, four senior senators, okay, three Democrats — let’s see if I can remember them — Feinstein, Wyden [it was actually not Wyden but the other Senator from Oregon, Jeff Merkley], the fellow up there in Massachusetts [Ed Markey], and [in addition to those three, the independent Senator] Bernie Sanders — they issue a call, a letter to then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Look, this is really getting out of hand. We don’t like the fact that Putin is brandishing these weapons that we really haven’t ever heard of before, but he’s calling for arms control talks, so let’s talk. Let’s talk. Guess what? That appeal appeared on all those four senators’ websites but was totally — totally — ignored by what passes for the mainstream media. So one suspects that this is an unwelcome subject, and there is proof positive.

The last thing I’ll mention, we were talking about four senior senators [Merkley is actually Oregon’s junior Senator] appealing for arms control talks on their websites but it never getting past their websites, no publicity for it. I’m thinking that Chuck Schumer [a reliable agent of the “military-industrial complex”] said, No, no. Arms control, no, no. We’re making the devil incarnate Vladimir Putin. Don’t mention arms control talks.

So that’s the reality in the mainstream media. When Trump had the audacity to say, You know, Putin won the election, he’s going to be around for six more years. Probably I’ll send him a congratulatory telegram [5:51 inaudible]. His staff says, No, no, no, don’t congratulate him. No, no, no, don’t congratulate him. Well, he not only congratulates him but he says, You know, the situation is such that we ought to get together sooner rather than later, and we ought to talk about arms control.

For those of your audience who listen to The New York Times website or read what’s in The New York Times, they are totally oblivious to that, because the Times cut out — they did a lede, a title or a headline, saying “Trump calls for arms control talks.” Now, that lasted 2 hours. What I’m trying to say here is that the only conclusion here is the old, hackneyed military-industrial-Congressional-intelligence-media complex. You ran a conference on the fiftieth anniversary of Eisenhower’s speech on the military-industrial complex. Well, it’s gotten worse, astronomically worse. And the people who make the arms, the people who sell arms, the people that Pope Francis, to his credit, before Congress two and a half years ago called “the blood-drenched arms traders,” those are the people that are running the show. And Putin and his folks are sitting back in Moscow and they’re saying, Whoa, we thought the military-industrial complex had a hold on Obama, and we were right. Now it looks even worse. Putin — this is in an interview; it’s March the 7th now, so six days later [than Putin’s major speech ] — somebody says, Hey, listen, Mr. Putin, why would you destroy the whole world? If there were a first strike on Russia, would you really respond? It would be too late to save Russia. You know what he says? Look, He says, yes, this would be a global catastrophe, but “as a citizen of Russia and as the head of the Russian state, I ask, What need will we have for a world if there was no Russia?” So he’s saying, Look, you’ve got to take this stuff seriously. Yes, we would retaliate, even if it meant that the rest of the world would be blown up as well as Russia.Two days later, four senior senators, okay, three Democrats — let’s see if I can remember them — Feinstein, Wyden [it was actually not Wyden but the other Senator from Oregon, Jeff Merkley], the fellow up there in Massachusetts [Ed Markey], and [in addition to those three, the independent Senator] Bernie Sanders — they issue a call, a letter to then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Look, this is really getting out of hand. We don’t like the fact that Putin is brandishing these weapons that we really haven’t ever heard of before, but he’s calling for arms control talks, so let’s talk. Let’s talk. Guess what? That appeal appeared on all those four senators’ websites but was totally — totally — ignored by what passes for the mainstream media. So one suspects that this is an unwelcome subject, and there is proof positive.The last thing I’ll mention, we were talking about four senior senators [Merkley is actually Oregon’s junior Senator] appealing for arms control talks on their websites but it never getting past their websites, no publicity for it. I’m thinking that Chuck Schumer [a reliable agent of the “military-industrial complex”] said, No, no. Arms control, no, no. We’re making the devil incarnate Vladimir Putin. Don’t mention arms control talks.So that’s the reality in the mainstream media. When Trump had the audacity to say, You know, Putin won the election, he’s going to be around for six more years. Probably I’ll send him a congratulatory telegram [5:51 inaudible]. His staff says, No, no, no, don’t congratulate him. No, no, no, don’t congratulate him. Well, he not only congratulates him but he says, You know, the situation is such that we ought to get together sooner rather than later, and we ought to talk about arms control.For those of your audience who listen to The New York Times website or read what’s in The New York Times, they are totally oblivious to that, because the Times cut out — they did a lede, a title or a headline, saying “Trump calls for arms control talks.” Now, that lasted 2 hours. What I’m trying to say here is that the only conclusion here is the old, hackneyed military-industrial-Congressional-intelligence-media complex. You ran a conference on the fiftieth anniversary of Eisenhower’s speech on the military-industrial complex. Well, it’s gotten worse, astronomically worse. And the people who make the arms, the people who sell arms, the people that Pope Francis, to his credit, before Congress two and a half years ago called “the blood-drenched arms traders,” those are the people that are running the show. And Putin and his folks are sitting back in Moscow and they’re saying, Whoa, we thought the military-industrial complex had a hold on Obama, and we were right. Now it looks even worse.

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and in the 1980s chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President’s Daily Brief. But now retired, he’s a critic of the very same government he had spent his career representing, and especially of its virtually fully controlled press, which he claims misrepresents systematically, as if it were owned outright by the controlling owners of the very same mega-corporations that manufacture and sell weapons to the Pentagon and to its allied militaries in Europe and the Middle East. Basically as a “military-industrial complex” scam upon the public, but really as a military-industrial-media complex, which is even more powerful than the more limited type that Eisenhower had warned against.Here, then, is from an interview that Ray McGovern did on Talk Nation Radio , on April 24th:

This is America’s ‘democracy’ today. How can it be a democracy if the public get deceived so systematically — both Parties, just the same? The public are deceived in order to pump up the stock-values of the privately owned (which is crucial here; and, by contrast, Russia’s weapons-firms remain state-controlled, so as not similarly to become tails that wag the Government) corporations, such as Lockheed Martin; or, for another example of this, Amazon, whose only profitable division is the one selling to the federal Government — to the CIA, NSA, and Pentagon — cloud computing services, which Amazon division is so profitable that it turns the entire Amazon corporation’s red ink, from Amazon’s consumer divisions, into black ink overall, which profitability keeps owner Jeff Bezos’s net worth rising to what it now is — and he also just happens to own the Russia-hating Washington Post. Is that anti-Russia stance a mere coincidence? Bezos’s purchase of the WP wasn’t a business decision to increase his net worth? Really? What a lucky fellow he must be!

Here is that letter, from Feinstein, Merkley, Markey, and Sanders, which was ignored by the press.

The letter that McGovern referred to, opens:

We write to urge the State Department to convene the next U.S.-Russia Strategic Dialogue as soon as possible.

A U.S.-Russia Strategic Dialogue is more urgent following President Putin’s public address on March 1st when he referred to several new nuclear weapons Russia is reportedly developing.

It then states:

Senior officials from the United States and Russia have said that the INF Treaty plays an “important role in the existing system of international security.” As such, we urge the State Department to resolve Russia’s violation through existing INF Treaty provisions or new mutually acceptable means.

Second, we urge the United States to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). The Trump administration’s own 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) references Russia’s robust nuclear modernization program as a main justification behind the U.S. need to recapitalize its three legs of the nuclear triad. An extension of New START would verifiably lock-in the Treaty’s Central Limits – and with it – the reductions in strategic forces Russia has made…

Lastly, as the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review notes, Russia maintains a numerical advantage to the United States in the number of non-strategic nuclear weapons. The Senate, in its Resolution of Ratification on New START in 2010, took stock of this imbalance and called upon the United States to commence negotiations that would “secure and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner.” Attempts by the Obama administration to negotiate an agreement on this class of weapons met resistance from Russia. However, even absent the political space for a formal agreement or binding treaty with Russia, we urge the State Department to discuss ways to enhance transparency on non-strategic nuclear weapons.

Extending New START, resolving Russia’s INF violation, and enhancing transparency measures relating to non-strategic nuclear weapons will also help quiet growing calls from many countries that the United States is not upholding its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations.

A Google-search of the concluding key phrase — the one which is essential to any news-report about this letter, the phrase beginning “Extending New START, resolving Russia’s INF violation, and enhancing transparency measures relating to non-strategic nuclear weapons will also help quiet growing calls from many countries that the United States is not” — produces no major media at all, and few even of alleged ‘alternative’ media. That is breathtaking, and Ray McGovern pointed it out. Thank you, Ray McGovern! Was this letter, from four U.S. Senators, not “News That’s Fit to Print”? Not in any of those ‘news’ media? Really?

The present news report is being submitted for publication, without fee, to all U.S. newsmedia, many small media, and also to many major media in America’s allied countries.