The great beauty of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interview with the famous American journalist Tucker Carlson is that there is something in it for almost everyone — be it historians who memorialise the past; diplomats who isolate history and take it out of context; spymasters who were cold warriors with adrenaline flowing still; politologists who contrived to create false narratives; and even an American president or two and one colourful British Prime Minister most certainly, who may have blood on their hands.

On February 13 the U.S. Senate voted to approve Biden’s $95 billion, including $60 billion for Ukraine. In addition to Democrats, 22 out of 49 Senate Republicans, including their leader, Mitch McConnell, voted for this bill. According to the “well-meaning” Joe and Senate Speaker Chuck Schumer’s plan, the war, the killing of Ukrainians, and the destruction of their country must go on, never mind the threat of its escalation and Putin’s offer to start negotiations.

Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin fed typical hysterical and ahistorical notions about Russian motives in Ukraine and beyond, writes Joe Lauria.

Our writers weigh in…

So what does ex-President Donald Trump think about NATO? Twice during his previous presidential campaign he rubbished it publicly, saying it was “obsolete”. Yet when a little later he met the UK’s prime minister, Therese May, it was all hunkydory. He told her he supported NATO 100%. Yet on Saturday he made a scathing speech saying he “encouraged” Russia that “they could do whatever the hell they want” against those NATO countries which had not paid up their dues.

During Mr. Obama’s second term in office (2013-2017), it had become clear that the terms of the public policy debate were undergoing a radical and worrying transformation. In the space of a very short time, certain ideas and policy proposals were being ruled as out of bounds not on the grounds that they were unwise, impractical, or inefficient, but on the grounds that they were products of “disinformation” campaigns on the part of foreign intelligence agencies.

If only the CIA’s rogue operations had been consigned to history as a result of the crimes exposed by the Church Committee, or at the least had brought the CIA under the rule of law and public accountability. But that was not to be.

Vladimir Putin’s challenge was to tell Americans through Tucker Carlson a complicated and unfamiliar narrative of how dearly Ukrainians and Russians are paying for Putin’s initial naïve trust in the West, writes Tony Kevin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is in a stronger position than he’s been for months. From Ukraine to the US, events are going Putin’s way. Analysts believe Putin has been waiting for Western support for Ukraine to falter — and now it has.

The US empire has by far the most sophisticated and effective propaganda machine ever to have existed, operating with such complexity that most people don’t even know it exists.