Putin, Hacking, Trump, and Democratic Priorities

THE ABSURD TIMES

Illustration: Latuff.  Here just because it is.  We seem to have forgotten about Palestine.

One of the more unfortunate results of this election, along with the alledged Russian "hacks," (perhaps "Leaks" would be a more precise word), is that one informed and sane "Liberals" and even "Progressives" feel free now to lash out not at the DNC and the way it ran the last election, but to instead turn their ire towards Assad and Putin.  Moreover, they can feel nice and patriotic about it at the same time.  

Facts are is short supply concerning the recent events in Aleppo, but we were first told that it was Al-Nusra that had held Aleppo, evil terrorists.  Now, all of a sudden, it is bold and brave "Rebels," a term that conjures thoughts of our war of independence for England in the 18^th century.  Now, poor helpless rebels, or innocent civilians (we invaded Libya to save "innocent civilians, remember?) are being tortured to death.  Oops, now they gave up and are being evacuated by international groups.

Palmyra just fell to ISIS, again.  How?  Well, they gave up on Mosul in Iraq and went there.  We could have knocked them out, but decided not to.

We have already discussed the Russians, the culturally and ethnically Russian citizens in Crimea who were, really, liberated and allowed to join the Russian Federation.   Anyone who felt out of place was allowed to leave with everything intact.  About 10 to 20% did. 

We have been though all of this, endlessly, before.  (See back issues of the past few years about it.)  The major point is that now that the idiot Trump is President Elect, Democrats feel free to attack Putin since, if you believe them, Putin got Trump elected! 

Trump has now gone on to appoint all sorts to vile characters to his cabinet.  The only good thing about all of this is that, just as the Republicans rebuilt their party along more sane policies, the Democrats have the same possibility.  If they listen to Sanders, Ellison, Warren, and a few others, the have a chance to become once again a Democratic party, not a semi-Republican one as it is now.  They need to look to themselves and let Trump and his gang worry about Putin.  Also, they need to present a united force against any attacks against social programs, "entitlements," which are actually necessities and, if the people are not entitled to them, why call them that?  There is where the party needs to focus. 

With the aid of Russian airstrikes, Syria has taken near full control of the city of Aleppo in a major defeat for forces hoping to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Before fighting began in 2012, Aleppo was Syria's largest city with a population of over 2 million. Some of the first major peaceful protests against Assad's rule broke out in Aleppo in March 2011. But today the city is in shambles after four years of fighting between Syria and rebel groups. A turning point in the battle of Aleppo occurred in September 2015, when Russia began carrying out airstrikes to aid the Syrian government. Russia described the fall of Aleppo as a victory against terrorists and jihadists. But the United States has decried the Russian-backed offensive. We host a debate between Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, and Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University.

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TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: With the aid of Russian airstrikes, Syria has taken near full control of the city of Aleppo in a major defeat for forces hoping to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Before fighting began in 2012, Aleppo was Syria's largest city, with a population of over 2 million. Some of the first major peaceful protests against Assad's rule broke out in Aleppo in March 2011. But today the city is in shambles, after four years of fighting between Syria and rebel groups. A turning point in the battle of Aleppo occurred in September 2015, when Russia began carrying out airstrikes to aid the Syrian government. Negotiations are now ongoing for a truce to allow the evacuation of civilians living in the areas once held by rebel forces. An initial truce collapsed earlier today. Ismail Alabdullah, a volunteer with the Syrian Civil Defense, or White Helmets, said civilians had been executed by government forces.

ISMAIL ALABDULLAH: When Assad's forces captured al-Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood and al-Fardos neighborhood, Assad's forces, when they entered—when they entered these neighborhoods, they executed 82 people. And the relatives of the victims, who are now with us, told us they were executed, including like 13 kids and seven women. All of them were executed. And what we are now—and what we worry about, about our [inaudible], that maybe the genocide—that genocide will happen in the coming days, if nothing will stop them in the coming hours.

AMY GOODMAN: Russia described the fall of Aleppo as a victory against terrorists and jihadists, but the United States has decried the Russian-backed offensive. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said, quote, "Aleppo will join the ranks of those events in world history that define modern evil, that stain our conscience decades later—Halabja, Rwanda, Srebrenica and now Aleppo," unquote. The U.N. said at least 82 civilians, including women and children, have been shot on sight by Syrian government troops in recent days.

To talk more about Syria, as well as how the fall of Aleppo impacts U.S.-Russian relations, we're joined by two guests. Kenneth Roth is with us, executive director of Human Rights Watch. His new article for The New York Review of Books is headlined "What Trump Should Do in Syria." And Stephen Cohen also joins us, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. He's a contributing editor at The Nation magazine.

Welcome, both, to Democracy Now! Ken Roth, let's begin with you. What's happened in Syria? And talk about Russia's role.

KENNETH ROTH: Well, we're all focused on Aleppo right now. And I think, as you mentioned earlier, Aleppo has been the victim of several months of siege, basically a starvation of everybody there, not simply the fighters, but up to 250,000 civilians. It also has been the victim of ongoing bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces. And what's notable about the way this war has been fought—and Aleppo is no exception to this—is that the Syrian-Russian combination have not simply aimed at fighters on the other side, which is what you're supposed to do in war, but they have deliberately targeted civilians and civilian institutions, like hospitals or markets and the like. And the aim is to make life so miserable that people either flee or the enclave ultimately topples. That's been this tactic in other areas, and now that has been successful in Aleppo. This is an overt war crime strategy, and it's been Assad's method of fighting the war from the outset. And Russia very much joined it, when, a little over year ago, in September 2015, it joined in. We had all hoped at that stage that the greater precision that Russian Air Force brought to the fighting would enable a more targeted approach. In fact, they just continued the policy of targeting civilians.

Now, we had hoped, as of last night, that for the remaining civilians in Aleppo—as well as the fighters, apparently—that there would be an evacuation. That had been arranged. But this morning, Shia militia, backed by Iran, blocked that deal and resumed shelling the area. This is of deep concern because, as you heard from the White Helmet individual, there have been executions in Aleppo when pro-government forces have entered. They, in particular, have been targeting the families of fighters. These are well known, and they're going door to door and executing women and children, as well as others who are there. So there's deep concern that if the people who remain in eastern Aleppo cannot get out, that they, too, may face these kinds of summary executions.

AMY GOODMAN: So, are you accusing Russia and Syria of war crimes here?

KENNETH ROTH: Absolutely. In other words, I mean, the fighters on the ground today are principally either Syrian or—I mean, the other major forces that have been backing Syria on the ground have been Iran and Hezbollah. Russia has been playing mainly an aerial role. But it—and often you can't tell which plane is which. You know, there are various efforts. But the combination of the Assad-Putin air forces have been deliberately bombing civilians and civilian institutions, time and time again. You speak to people in hospitals who report being targeted over and over again, until ultimately the hospital is destroyed. And this, you know, sadly, has been the strategy that Putin and Assad have pursued in Syria. This is a blatant war crime. The Geneva Conventions require that you take all feasible precautions to spare civilians. In this case, the deliberate purpose has been to target civilians. It's a blatant war crime.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Stephen Cohen?

STEPHEN COHEN: Is anybody here old enough to remember the expression "fog of war"? I think it may have originated in World War I. I'm not sure. But then, when you get a war, you have a very difficult time getting reliable information about what's going on.

There are several narratives about the Syrian civil proxy war—and that's what it is, a lot of great powers, or would-be great powers, involved in Syria. The United States and Russia are involved in a proxy war there. It's a civil war. The account Mr. Roth just gave is only one of two or three competing narratives. One narrative is—and in war, innocents die. That's why we're all antiwar. He says that the Russians joined with the Syrians in deliberate war crimes. This is based on very selective reports that come from sources that cannot be verified. For example, the White Helmet man, that you had testify to this, didn't tell us how he knew that, how he observed it, how he escaped with his own life. Moreover, there are people who doubt the reports that come from the White Helmets, that they have an agenda. So the rest of us are left here trying to weigh the different narratives. Mr. Roth's is a very extreme set of accusations. What Samantha Power has said at the United Nations, over a long period of time, can't be taken at face value, because she has performed there not as an ambassador, but as a propagandist for a certain point of view.

The problem here is, is that what's the alternative to ending the siege of Aleppo? Now, you, Amy, Mr. Roth and The New York Times have dropped the word "jihadist" and "terrorist" from your narrative. I don't know if you're aware you've done that. You may have done this because The New York Times, until September—why was September important? Because President Obama had proposed to join with President Putin in what Mr. Roth now calls war crimes—that is, a military alliance against the people who are holding Aleppo captive. And they called them terrorists. When our Department of Defense sabotaged that potential Russian-American alliance in Aleppo, in Syria, suddenly the narrative—and we're back to the fog of war—changed. The New York Times, for example, and many of us who depend on the Times or The Washington Post for our information, suddenly changed their narrative. There were no longer any terrorists in Aleppo, no longer any jihadists, but people called rebels. And since our nation began in rebellion against Great Britain, rebels have a rather positive connotation. The reality is, I think—at least this is what the United States government told us until September—that terrorists were holding large parts of eastern Aleppo. They were not letting innocent civilians use the multiple corridors out of the city that the Russians—yes, there's plenty of testimony to this—had opened up and guaranteed, that people could not escape the city because of these terrorists. Then, suddenly, when the American-Russian—Obama's plan to cooperate with Putin there disappeared, apparently all the jihadists and the terrorists disappeared.

So we're left today in a fog of war. Perhaps Mr. Roth is correct, but I don't think he's fully correct. And we have two narratives. Either we have witnessed the liberation of Aleppo, and then we would say this is a good thing, or we're witnessing war crimes by the Russians and the Syrians in Aleppo, which is a bad thing. So, I would ask Mr. Roth: If the Russians hadn't done what he alleged they would do, what was the alternative to setting the people of Aleppo free?

AMY GOODMAN: Ken Roth?

KENNETH ROTH: Let me begin with this fog of war argument, because, you know, when there's nothing to say, when there's nothing to defend, let's resort to the fog of war. I mean, I've heard this argument many, many times. This is not fog of war. We know exactly what is going on. Human Rights Watch has teams on the ground, based in Beirut, occasionally going into Syria, in regular communication with people in Aleppo, in other places. We don't publish until we know exactly what is going on, until we corroborate and we're certain. So this is not a matter of just, you know, taking some jihadist propagandist and repeating it. We know exactly what is happening. And there is no question that the bombardment has been targeting civilians and civilian institutions. There is no question that the siege was starving everybody, including a quarter of a million civilians. So, you know, fog of war? Please. You know, this is the reality.

Now, what—you know, what could have been done? We speak about terrorists, and so let's get specific here. When people use that term, they generally refer to two groups. One is the Islamic State, or ISIS. ISIS is actually not in Aleppo at all. The U.S., working with its Kurdish allies, is fighting ISIS, you know, in Iraq around Mosul and in Syria around Raqqa. And Russia, for the most part, and Assad have largely been ignoring that fight. They've been focusing on Aleppo. Now, in Aleppo, there are what are known as sort of the moderate rebels, and then there's a group that the United States agrees is a terrorist, is an al-Qaeda affiliate—until very recently, when it supposedly distanced itself from al-Qaeda—traditionally known as Jabhat al-Nusra. The Jabhat al-Nusra forces are a relatively small component of the people in Aleppo, but the U.S. has agreed with Russia that it would like to see those people defeated.

Now, you know, however you feel about that, however you feel about the other rebels, the issue is—here, is not who wins. The issue is the method of warfare. And the right way to proceed is you shoot at the combatants on the other side. That's what the laws of war are all about. Unfortunately, Putin and Assad have chosen to target the civilians who also live there. It's a very deliberate strategy: make life so miserable that ultimately the city has no choice but to capitulate.

Now, you know, there is tremendous fear on the part of civilians in all of these enclaves who are targeted, and they—on the one hand, they fear staying there, because they're facing the bombardment by the Russian and the Syrian troops; on the other hand, they fear going over into Syrian hands, because, you know, we know what happens in Syrian prisons. We've seen extensive torture and execution. We have photos of, you know, thousands of people who have died in those prisons. And so, if you're a young man, for example, you basically are facing a choice: You know, do you either risk your life in Assad's detention facilities, or—you know, what they're increasingly doing is forcing you to just get into the Syrian military and go to the front line—you know, essentially a suicide mission there. So, it is, you know, a very poor possibility. Now, many families are staying with their relatives who are fighters, and these are the people who are being first targeted by the pro-government forces that are coming in. So, we are—you know, this is not about how do you defeat terrorists. This is about slaughter of civilians. And we should keep that focus.

AMY GOODMAN: Slaughter of civilians. The United Nations calls it a meltdown of humanity. Stephen Cohen?

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, the United Nations has issued conflicting reports. There's a bit of a struggle at the United Nations about what to say about all this.

Look, Mr. Roth's organization does God's work. No question about it. But for millennia, we've argued exactly what God's work is. One can support what Human Rights Watch does, with great enthusiasm, make a donation, urge Mr. Roth on, and still question his narrative. He has, he asserts, absolutely verifiable sources. The reality is, he doesn't. He criticizes me for saying fog of war, but there are other reports that have to be taken into account. The charge that Russia deliberately targets civilian facilities and centers is, of course, a part of the growing anti-Russian line that's captured our politics and has led to this scandal in Washington.

I think we need to step back for a minute. And I won't speak of my own involvement in human rights or civil liberties, because I'm older than both of you, and I would have you at a disadvantage, because I'm not sure you even remember these struggles—you do, but I'm not talking about only in the South, but in Russia and elsewhere. Putin said, prior to sending his Air Force to Syria, just over a year ago, in September 2015, I think—said it at the United Nations. He said it to President Obama. He said it at every press conference. During the period, three-year period, prior to that, the United States claimed it was fighting the Islamic State—and, of course, Mr. Roth is right: There are different terrorist groups fighting in Syria, some in Palmyra, some in Aleppo. During the three years the United States claimed to have been fighting the Islamic State, the Islamic State gained more and more and more territory, after the fall of Libya, or after we overthrew Gaddafi. It gained more territory in Iraq, and it gained an enormous territory in Syria. And something new emerged in the world: a terrorist organization that had actually turned itself into a real state. I mean, it was governing these territories, running municipal facilities, collecting taxes. This was something new and exceedingly dangerous.

So Putin said we have a choice: Who do we want in Damascus, the capital of Syria? Do we want Assad, the president of Syria, or do we want the Islamic State in Damascus? This was the key policy difference between the United States and Russia. The Obama had—administration had pursued, in fact, a policy of overthrowing Assad. Dealing with terrorists in Syria, some of whom we've funded, as Mr. Roth well knows, because they claimed to be anti-Assad, meant that, in fact, as we pursued the war against Assad, the Islamic State turned—took more and more territory. And Russia decided it had had enough, because it believed Syria was vital to its national security, and it intervened, and the war has been turned around. The United States has been on the wrong side of history from the beginning of this. The United States has made its contribution, since Vietnam, at least, to the destruction of hospitals and civilian facilities, most recently in Afghanistan. Was it deliberate? I don't know. It was probably an accident. In Mr. Roth's absolutist view, everything is certain, everything is deliberate. I'm more problematic.

But look what's happening in Syria today. It's extremely interesting. The Russians and the Syrians, some months ago, took back Palmyra, this historic city, where the Islamic State had been chopping off heads in public, where it had lined up its victims and had young children—looked to be about 10, 11, 12—execute them. I'm sure Human Rights Watch reported that and protested it. And then the Russians and the Syrians liberated the city. Now Palmyra is under siege again. The Islamic State may take control of the city. What is the United States doing about it? This is what we should be asking. This is our country now, not Russia.

AMY GOODMAN: Ken Roth, your response?

KENNETH ROTH: Well, I'm glad—

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, let—wait, let me finish my point. You filibustered. Let me just make my last point. He hasn't mentioned Mosul, by the way, and whether the same thing is happening in Mosul. The American-led—

KENNETH ROTH: I just mentioned that, yeah.

STEPHEN COHEN: One second, please. There are verifiable reports that jihadists in Mosul are fleeing, because of the Iraqi-American war there. Where are they going? They're going to Syria. The United States has bombers in that area. They could stop these people from going to Syria. They're headed, I would guess, toward Palmyra. Why is the United States allowing these jihadists, these terrorists, to go to Syria? Because, possibly, they want them to take back Palmyra from the Russians and the Syrians. Now, we don't know if that's true, but the American role is highly suspect.

And rather than sit here and say the Russians are committing war crimes—because, look, one person's war crime is another person's liberation. On the front page of The New York Times this very morning, there is a story by Anne Barnard—by the way, Americans are not filing from Syrian that; they're filing from Beirut, so they're depending on different sources. But she makes an interesting point. She repeats what Mr. Roth says, that—about people being executed by the Syrian Army. But she goes on to say these can't be verified. And then, two or three paragraphs later, she reports that people trapped in Aleppo are welcoming the Syrian Army with jubilation, she reports. So, even in The New York Times, which has not been very helpful in these narratives, you see the two narratives.

And undoubtedly, part of what Mr. Roth said is absolutely true. Part of it is part of the position that he has taken more generally about Russia being mainly responsible for virtually everything bad that's happening in the world. And I'll just end by saying that, in my judgment, the real threat to our national security at this moment, number one, is not unfolding in Syria, but in Washington, D.C.

AMY GOODMAN: Ken Roth?

KENNETH ROTH: Let's get back to reality here. The U.S. has been bombing ISIS in both Mosul and in Raqqa. You know, Professor Cohen says jihadists are fleeing Mosul. That was several weeks ago. You know, since then, it's actually been encircled, and so they're not fleeing. But there's no question that the U.S. is actively bombing in Iraq. It's backed by, you know, government forces and Kurdish forces on the ground. And in Syria, it's backed by predominantly Kurdish forces with a Syrian component to it. You know, that war seems to be progressing slowly.

If you look at what the Russian role in this has been, yes, you know, a year ago Russia retook Palmyra from ISIS. These days, it's been focusing entirely on Aleppo, where there is no ISIS. If you look at—there's a group called the Institute for the Study of War, which puts out very interesting maps, basically once a month, to show where the bombardment is. And so, they show the Russian bombardment. And you can see all these little explosives around Aleppo, and, you know, one or two around Raqqa or Palmyra. I have tweeted that on my Twitter account, if people want to find it. So, I mean, there's no question that the focus of Russia and Assad today has not been ISIS. They use the terrorist rhetoric, but they've been going after the opponents of the Assad regime.

Now, you know, that's their choice. For me, the issue is how they fight the war. Now, Professor Cohen says, oh, you know, I'm just making this up that they're targeting civilians. You know, look at the hospitals. They're a very good illustration. Until September 2015, you know, at a point where it was just the Syrian Air Force in the skies, they were using these so-called barrel bombs, which are very imprecise weapons. They're essentially canisters filled with explosives and shrapnel, which would tumble to earth—very difficult to target. Since the Russians entered the war, they've got precision weapons. And so, you talk to the doctors—and which I've done repeatedly—and they describe much more precise hits on the hospital. And this is not a mistake. This is over and over and over until the hospital is destroyed. There is no question that these hospitals are being deliberately targeted. You can say, "Oh, fog of war," but last time I checked, the only people in the sky over Aleppo are the Russians and the Syrians. There's no one else.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to have to break, and then we're going to come back to this discussion and go to this issue that Professor Cohen has raised: Washington, the Russia-U.S. relationship. We're speaking with Professor Stephen Cohen, has taught Russian studies at both New York University and Princeton, now writes for The Nation, and Kenneth Roth, who's executive director of Human Rights Watch. Stay with us.

We turn now to take a broader look at U.S.-Russian relations in the wake of Donald Trump's election. On Tuesday, Trump officially nominated Rex Tillerson, chair and CEO of ExxonMobil, to be secretary of state. Tillerson is known to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who awarded Tillerson the country's Order of Friendship decoration in 2013. One of the focuses of the Senate confirmation hearings will be Exxon's $500 billion oil exploration partnership with the Russian government's oil company, Rosneft. Considered the largest oil deal in history, the partnership can only go through if the U.S. lifts sanctions against Russia, which the Obama administration imposed over Russia's intervention in Ukraine. The news of Rex Tillerson's nomination came just days after the CIA accused Russia of meddling in the U.S. election to help Donald Trump win. Trump has rejected the CIA's conclusion, decrying it as "ridiculous." But President Obama ordered a review of Russia's role in influencing the presidential election. With us are Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, and Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University.

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TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to take a broader look at U.S.-Russian relations in the wake of Donald Trump's election. On Tuesday, Trump officially nominated Rex Tillerson, chair and CEO of ExxonMobil, to be secretary of state. Tillerson is known to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who awarded Tillerson the country's Order of Friendship decoration in 2013. One of the focuses of the Senate confirmation hearings will be Exxon's $500 billion oil exploration partnership with the Russian government's oil company, Rosneft, considered the largest oil deal in history. The partnership can only go through if the U.S. lifts sanctions against Russia, which the Obama administration imposed over Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

The news of Tillerson's nomination came just days after the CIA accused Russia of meddling in the U.S. election to help Donald Trump win. Trump has rejected the CIA's conclusion, decrying it as "ridiculous." But President Obama ordered a review of Russia's role in influencing the presidential election.

Still with us, Kenneth Roth, who is executive director of Human Rights Watch, and Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University.

Stephen Cohen, start with the elections.

STEPHEN COHEN: Be more precise.

AMY GOODMAN: What we understand, what the U.S. allegations are around Russian intervention in the elections. The New York Times today has a major top story.

STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: "Hacking the Democrats: How the Russia Honed Its Cyberpower and Trained It on an American Election."

STEPHEN COHEN: I don't know where to begin. Let me context it, because when we first—when you first had me on, February 2014, I said we were headed for a new Cold War with Russia, and it would be more dangerous than the last one. That has happened. We now have three Cold War fronts that are fraught with hot war, the possibility of hot war—the Baltic area, Ukraine and Syria—between two nuclear powers. Things are very, very dangerous.

We desperately need in this country a discussion of American policy toward Russia. We can't keep saying an untruth, that this new Cold War is solely the fault of Putin. We need to rethink our policy, at least over 20 years, but over the last five or six years, toward Russia. That has been made even more impossible now with this slurring of anybody who disagrees from the official American position of how the Cold War arose. The slurring began against people such as myself two or three years ago. We were called Putin apologists, Kremlin toadies, Kremlin clients. It moved on to even accuse Henry Kissinger of that. And then, of course, when Trump come along, this was a great blessing to these people, who are essentially neo-McCarthyites. It's spread to The New York Times.

So we have his allegation that the Russians deliberately—word Mr. Roth likes; I think there's more accident and miscalculation in history than he seems to think—deliberately, on the orders of Putin, hacked into the Democratic National Committee, and not only, in order to—and here the narrative gets a little puzzling. The original intention was simply to throw American democracy into chaos, cast disrepute on the American political system, but then they realized that they could actually throw the election to Trump. Now we have The New York Times, what used to be a newspaper we thought would protect us from these kinds of allegations, saying in an editorial that they did this, the Russians did this, because Trump is surrounded by Kremlin lackeys. This is an extremely serious and reckless allegation, that he's—our new president is surrounded by Kremlin lackeys. They don't name names, but we know how they mean—what they mean. And both the editorial page of the Timesand Paul Krugman, who, after all, won a Nobel Prize and once was my colleague at Princeton as an economist—it's really astonishing to see what he now writes—says that Trump won only because of what the Russians did. What we have from the CIA, which itself is divided—we know that there are different opinions in the CIA—we have yet to be presented with a single fact. In this New York Times story, which rehearses, basically, New York Times' miscoverage of this whole episode, they do the same thing. They are assessments, which is judgment. They are allegations. But no one has produced how they know this with facts. Did they tap into Russian cellphones? Do they have a mole in Putin's inner circle who's telling them? Do they have satellite surveillance? We don't know.

Let me bring to your attention something that's not been reported. There's a group of very serious former American intelligence officers called, I think, Veteran Intelligence Officers for Sanity. I'm not sure.

AMY GOODMAN: VIPS [Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity].

STEPHEN COHEN: You know them. And they issued a report yesterday. I can't judge it. I'm not an intelligence person in that sense. But they believe this wasn't hacking at all, but leaking, that somebody leaked this stuff from the Democratic—in other words, somebody in the United States. So, here we have no facts presented by the CIA. The FBI itself will not go along, because it's a fact organization. It's got to have evidence that's presentable in a court. We have the possibility—I don't know, but it's offered by credible people—that this wasn't hacking, but leaking. And the result is, we're having the new president called essentially a Kremlin lackey. Senator McCain has said, to his eternal discredit, that Putin is a bully, a liar, an invader of countries, a man who's determined to destroy the American way of life, and adds, if anybody doesn't agree with Senator McCain, he's a liar. So—

AMY GOODMAN: He also calls Putin a killer. Do you agree?

STEPHEN COHEN: A killer, a murderer. No, I do not. Well, I mean, killer, in warfare, yes. He didn't—oh, well, McCain went on to say that Putin had personally ordered the killing of Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition who was shot down on a bridge. No one in Moscow takes that seriously, not even Nemtsov's family. But the point we have here, Amy—and this is exceedingly dangerous—is that we have a new accepted practice of labeling anyone who dissents from American policy toward Russia as a Kremlin apologist. And I know very serious people who have become afraid to speak out now, because they don't want to be labeled.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let's get Kenneth Roth's response and also to the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan—of course, both Republicans—announcing their support for an investigation into whether Russia did hack the elections.

KENNETH ROTH: Well, by all means, there should be an investigation. I mean, why not?

STEPHEN COHEN: Sure.

KENNETH ROTH: You've got to be very careful, though, when—you know, when there are accusations against Russia, and the response is "new Cold War," as if "Let's not look into this. Might be a new Cold War." You know, let's look at the reality here. In Syria—we've just discussed this—there has been Putin's involvement in the deliberate targeting of civilians. Ukraine, I mean, Amy, you had made a major faux pas by saying that Russia invaded Ukraine. You know, that was utterly denied by the Kremlin for a long time. It was the "little green men" in Crimea, until suddenly it was Russian forces. It was, you know, just a spontaneous uprising in eastern Ukraine, until suddenly there were Russian forces behind all that. So, you know, the truth is malleable when it's useful. And I think it's—we should be focusing on the reality.

Now, I have no special insight into the hacking allegations. By all means, there should be an investigation. And I do—I am concerned about Trump's nominee for secretary of state, because, you know, here is a guy, Rex Tillerson, who has had a career in cozying up to autocrats around the world, you know, in the name of Big Oil. And he has developed very good relations with Angola, with Equatorial Guinea and with Putin. And I worry about whether a man like that, who has put the interests of Big Oil ahead of everything else, is going to be able to pursue a foreign policy where, in theory, the promotion of human rights was a major part of it. One thing these autocrats all have in common is a general disregard for human rights. And is this the person we want in charge of our foreign policy?

AMY GOODMAN: And this issue of, if he is chosen, and Exxon's desire to have these sanctions lifted, the largest oil deal in not just U.S., but in world, history, if these sanctions are lifted, would benefit his company.

KENNETH ROTH: Well, now, clearly, ExxonMobil didn't like the sanctions that were imposed on Russia because of the adventurism of these "little green men" that have nothing to do with the Kremlin in eastern Ukraine. And ExxonMobil fought that. Now, this is, you know, not a human rights issue. It's not something that Human Rights Watch has taken a position on. But it does raise questions about, you know, what is the primary concern of Rex Tillerson. And can he really, after having spent his entire career at Big Oil, his entire career, professional life, at ExxonMobil, suddenly switch hats and pursue other values as the head of the State Department?

AMY GOODMAN: Then this issue that Professor Cohen raises of a new McCarthyism?

KENNETH ROTH: Well, that's another way of saying, you know, a new Cold War. You know, just because you start accusing people who say bad things about Putin of McCarthyism doesn't mean it's not true. I mean, you know, these big labels don't help. Let's look at the facts. You know, who actually did act in Ukraine? You know, was it really just a spontaneous uprising, or was there a Russian role in this? You know, who is providing the precision weapons in Syria that have been targeting civilians and civilian institutions? Nobody else has an air force like that other than Russia. Nobody even pretends that there are planes up there above Aleppo other than Russia, with their Syrian allies. So, you know, you've got to get down to the reality here. And I don't think throwing around these names of "new Cold War" or accusing people of McCarthyite tactics has anything to do with this. Let's get to the facts. And the facts are pretty ugly right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, I presume, Professor Cohen, that you have some concerns about Donald Trump. Are any of them around his relationship with or the—the relationship with or his professed admiration for Putin?

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, I'm kind of startled by a number things that Mr. Roth said. And I don't like the way he dismisses everything I say as kind of a way of avoiding it by referring to a new Cold War and what happened in Ukraine. I don't think he really knows what happened in Ukraine, but that could be a separate discussion between us. And then he goes back to Syria. But what surprises me is, is that a man who represents human rights, one of which is freedom of speech, or, as Roosevelt would say, freedom of fear of speech, of being afraid to speak out, isn't worried about this new neo-McCarthyism and isn't on my side on this, that we should stop this. And he's kind of—and let me finish. He's kind of mangled it. I didn't say that anybody who says something bad about Putin is the target of this neo-McCarthyism. What I said was, anybody who dissents from the orthodox account of how we ended up in this new Cold War—and if Mr. Roth thinks it's not a new Cold War, he's welcome to that thought, though he'll miss all the attendant dangers. It's the people who speak out who are being called apologists for Putin, and it's chilling debate here. So let me make the point I began at the beginning.

AMY GOODMAN: We have 30 seconds.

STEPHEN COHEN: Only, and I can say it in 10. We're in the most dangerous confrontation with Russia since the Cuban missile crisis. It needs to be discussed. And at the moment, it can't be discussed because of these charges that everybody is a client of Putin who disagrees with the mainstream opinion. And it's coming from the Senate. It's coming from The New York Times. It's coming from—and I wish we had a second to say what the motives are. But one motive is to keep Trump from going to the White House. Another is to delegitimize him before he gets there. But the main motive—and you can hear it clearly—is Trump has said he wants cooperation with Russia, and the war party here that's against that is determined to stop it. And the way you do it is level against Putin the kinds of accusations that Mr. Roth uncritically levels, so the rest of us will say we can't have any cooperations with Putin because he's a war criminal.

AMY GOODMAN: Twenty seconds, Ken Roth.

KENNETH ROTH: Well, I'm all for talking with Putin, trying to cooperate with him. In fact, my New York Review piece argues that the key to Syria is for Trump to put pressure on Putin, because Assad wouldn't be able to commit these atrocities without Putin's active support. So, I'm—

STEPHEN COHEN: That's not talking with Putin; that's putting pressure on Putin.

KENNETH ROTH: And talk to him, too. And we never objected to the ongoing debate, the ongoing conversation, but it shouldn't be in lieu of the kind of pressure, which is all that Putin listens to these days.

STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, for God's sake. That's all he listens to. And you base that on what? Your careful study—

KENNETH ROTH: I'm watching—I've watched—

STEPHEN COHEN: Your careful study of Putin? Your following of Russian politics?

KENNETH ROTH: I've watched two—yeah, I've watched—let me answer. Let me answer.

STEPHEN COHEN: Look, at some point, let's be fact-based, OK?

KENNETH ROTH: I've watched him for two years—

STEPHEN COHEN: You simply don't know what you're—oh.

KENNETH ROTH: —talk and talk and talk with Kerry and Lavrov.

STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, oh.

KENNETH ROTH: And he just continued with the atrocities.

STEPHEN COHEN: You watched it, or you listened to what he said? Or you listened—you read it?

KENNETH ROTH: The only way to ratchet up—the only way he has made any—

STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, for God's sake.

KENNETH ROTH: —change in Syria is when the pressure mounts.

STEPHEN COHEN: We're back to Syria now.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to have to leave it there. We're going to have to leave it there, but I want to thank you both for being a part of this discussion. Stephen Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at Princeton and New York University. And Kenneth Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch. This is Democracy Now! 

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