Pardon Edward Snowden

By Ed Pilkington, Guardian UK

14 September 16

Bernie Sanders, Daniel Ellsberg, former members of the NSA and more weigh in on whether Obama should grant clemency to the divisive whistleblower

ernie Sanders leads a chorus of prominent public figures calling for clemency, a plea agreement or, in several cases, a full pardon for the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Writing in the Guardian, the runner-up in the race to become Democratic presidential candidate argues that Snowden helped to educate the American public about how the NSA violated the constitutional rights of citizens with its mass surveillance program. Sanders argues that there should be some form of resolution that would acknowledge both the “troubling revelations” that he had brought to light and the crime that he committed in doing so, that would “spare him a long prison sentence or permanent exile”.

Sanders joins 20 other prominent public figures – from Hollywood actors and rock musicians to politicians, professors and Black Lives Matter activists – who call on Barack Obama to find some way of allowing Snowden to return home to the US from exile in Russia. The Guardian’s voices are raised in the week that Oliver Stone’s film, Snowden, is released in the US and that a coalition of groups including the ACLU and Amnesty International launch a new campaign for a presidential pardon before Obama steps down.

Among the writers in the Guardian are Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who released the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, who calls for Snowden to be allowed to make a public interest defense in any US trial. From the world of arts, actor Susan Sarandon and director Terry Gilliam, novelist Barry Eisler and Sonic Youth singer Thurston Moore all make impassioned calls for an Obama pardon.

Senior politicians from both sides of the Atlantic, including former US senator Mark Udall, UK parliamentarian David Winnick and German Green party member Hans-Christian Ströbele all fly the flag for a Snowden homecoming. Similar calls are made by public intellectuals including Noam Chomsky, Cornel West and Sanders’ former Democratic presidential rival and Harvard law professor, Lawrence Lessig.

Not everyone writing in the Guardian today is empathetic towards the whistleblower. The former director of the NSA, Michael Hayden, says Snowden should face “the full force of the law” were he to come home. Stewart Baker, also latterly of the NSA, argues that Snowden’s leak caused harm to US national interests – a contention that is strongly disputed by many of the other people writing here.

Bernie Sanders
US senator for Vermont and Democratic presidential runner-up

The information disclosed by Edward Snowden has allowed Congress and the American people to understand the degree to which the NSA has abused its authority and violated our constitutional rights.

Now we must learn from the troubling revelations Mr Snowden brought to light. Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies must be given the tools they need to protect us, but that can be done in a way that does not sacrifice our rights.

While Mr Snowden played an important role in educating the American people, there is no debate that he also violated an oath and committed a crime. In my view, the interests of justice would be best served if our government granted him some form of clemency or a plea agreement that would spare him a long prison sentence or permanent exile.

Susan Sarandon
Oscar-winning actor

Ed Snowden did this country a great service. Here was a man who had a well-paying job and a good life in Hawaii yet tore it all up so that he could reveal to all of us what the NSA was doing to us in the name of national security. He did so for no personal gain, and at massive personal cost, because he cared about a basic principle: that governments should not lie to their people.

I don’t think a person like that should be exiled from their country. I don’t think a person like that deserves to be locked away for decades like Chelsea Manning. I think President Obama should do the right thing: pardon Ed and let him come home to his family and his people.

Daniel Ellsberg
Former US military analyst who released the 1971 Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam war, and who met Snowden in Moscow last year

Ed Snowden should be freed of the legal burden hanging over him. They should remove the indictment, pardon him if that’s the way to do it, so that he is no longer facing prison.

The NSA and US government have revealed no evidence that the information Ed Snowden released has caused any harm. Inconvenience, yes, embarrassment certainly, but what has truly been revealed is that the NSA itself was unquestionably committing international, domestic and constitutional crimes.

Were the government to have any evidence that Snowden revealed information that should have been protected, I think he should be judged by a jury. I was the first person to be tried for a leak under the Espionage Act, and I certainly didn’t object to my case being weighed by a jury, although it never came to that. But there has to be a public interest defense, which doesn’t exist in US law now.

As things stand, I think the chance that this or any president will pardon Snowden is zero. They wouldn’t dare to challenge the intelligence community that remains so hostile to him. Nor does Snowden have any chance of a fair trial under the Espionage Act, any more than I did.

So nothing would be gained by him coming back and standing trial unless the Espionage Act were changed to permit that public interest defense. He’s said to me that he’s willing to come back and serve one, two or conceivably three years as a result of a plea bargain arranged beforehand, but they haven’t offered him one as far as I’m aware.

Terry Gilliam
Film director and former Monty Python star

I think anyone helping to strengthen the workings of democracy should be rewarded. What Edward Snowden’s prize should be, I don’t know, perhaps something as unglamorous and hard to display on his mantelpiece as a presidential pardon. That would be nice.

Michael Hayden
Former director of the National Security Agency

What Edward Snowden did amounted to the greatest hemorrhaging of legitimate American secrets in the history of my nation.

If he wants to come home, and that’s his choice, I think he should face the full force of the law. Then he would be able to mount his defense. I would not be supportive of a public interest defense, however, because the American people declare some things to be legal and some things to be illegal, and don’t anoint the individual citizen to decide whether that’s a good or a bad idea.

If Snowden really claims that his actions amounted to genuine civil disobedience, he should go to some English language bookstore in Moscow and get a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience. Thoreau points out clearly that civil disobedience gets its moral authority by the willingness to suffer the penalties from disobeying a law, even if you think that law is unjust.

It would be incredibly unwise for this president to offer a pardon. President Obama and his successors are dependent on the 100,000-plus people inside the American intelligence community – the people Edward Snowden betrayed. For any president to align himself with Snowden’s approach in this controversy would carry an incredible cost to the spirit and morale of the intelligence community.

Malkia Cyril
Executive director of the Center for Media Justice and a Black Lives Matter activist

Right now, Black Lives Matter activists protesting deadly police and other forms of state violence who have not been accused of any crime are being spied on with Stingray cellphone interceptors, tracked through biometric facial recognition software and license-plate readers, among other things. And, this isn’t limited to black activists.

Black people of all kinds know that since blacks were enslaved in the western hemisphere, to be black in America is to suffer persistent surveillance, to be watched as if being black was a spectator sport. How many black people right now are wearing electronic monitors? Are in databases we can’t get off? Are on the no-fly list? Are living in communities that are so over-policed they have been turned into open-air prisons?

This is why Edward Snowden must be pardoned – because the ability of black communities to organize for our collective liberation depends, in part, on whistleblowers like him. Black movements for peace and freedom demand that out of the darkness of empire, truth-tellers emerge to sound the alarm.

His revelations directly challenged the commonly held belief that media, phone and technology corporations must always give into state interests to target and harass the public. His bravery was a catalyst for the modern movement to defend democracy from both state and corporate overreach.

Noam Chomsky
Professor of linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

President Obama should provide Edward Snowden with a form of clemency that would permit him to return home to the United States – and still more appropriately in my view, remove all threats of criminal investigation as well.

Snowden should, in my opinion, be welcomed home with honors for his service to his country, and for his courage and integrity in the manner in which he performed this service. Apart from exceptional circumstances, citizens have every right to know what their government is doing, in particular what it is doing to them – in the present case, as Snowden revealed to us, keeping citizens under extensive and deeply intrusive surveillance.

No case has been made that relevant exceptional circumstances prevail. As well known, initial claims about prevention of terrorist actions collapsed under investigation, and no credible case has been made that the massive invasion of privacy, arguably in violation of constitutional rights, is warranted. Snowden made every effort to follow established procedures for bringing this crucial information to the general public. When these failed, he took the courageous and honorable step of transmitting the information through the medium of careful and highly reliable and experienced journalists, who, along with him, carefully vetted the material to ensure that no possible harm would be caused to individuals or to security.

Citizens of the United States – and indeed the world, considering the extraordinary range of the operations that have been revealed – are very much in Snowden’s debt. He should certainly not be punished in any way for the services that he has performed in the interests of democracy and civil rights. At the very least, he should be granted the full freedom to return home without fear of prosecution, and, I very much hope, to be welcomed with the respect that he richly deserves.

Thurston Moore
Singer-songwriter of Sonic Youth

From the perspective of someone born in the friendly ’50s in the USA, it has become normal to witness the uncovering of classified information over time ...

Living in this day in age one would imagine that we – so connected now – could’ve found a way to share resources in a more socially responsible way. It’s absolutely perplexing to me to try to understand people involved in The Bilderberg Group, or see people, even friends and colleagues in places such as Los Angeles, spending hours and hours and hundreds of dollars bleaching their hair every week and purchasing absurdly priced designer clothing whilst in travels on the same tours through Europe and witness to young Syrian refugees or young disenfranchised children and kids in Detroit or Mexico City or even London on the streets, starved. There is an obvious and embarrassing injustice.

Simultaneously going to the cinema, there are sometimes advertisements/campaigns before the trailers to join the military – and there we are in the audience boo-ing! How dare these guys boast their heartless, imperialist activities in an effort to recruit young people. It’s sickening.

It’s difficult to talk about. It’s hard to even talk anymore. I listen more now. We listen to our Palestinian neighbors. We listen to the brave men and women and trans people fighting for basic rights. We seek out film festivals and documentary festivals where activist artists bravely tell stories to try to affect change in communities. We read everything Chelsea Manning has written. It inspires us. We try to make a more universal music of peace and love.

We are grateful for the courage and the conscience of the whistleblowers. Everywhere. From Angela Davis and the Black Panther party in the USA, Anna Mendelssohn (aka Grace Lake) and Stuart Christie and The Angry Brigade in the UK and today’s activist beauties such as Snowden, Manning, Assange ... others. All I can say to them is thank you, and try to honour them in my music. They are heroes. They will be remembered, hopefully honored in their own lifetime.

Cornel West
Philosopher, civil rights activist and professor at Princeton University

In an age of pervasive mendacity and massive criminality my dear brother Edward Snowden exemplifies courage and integrity. I call for President Obama to give him a pardon owing to his public service for truth and democratic accountability.

Lawrence Wilkerson
Retired US army colonel and former chief of staff to US secretary of state Colin Powell

Frankly, I believe that were Snowden to return to the US, he would be treated badly; so much so, that even if he were fully pardoned – and could convince himself that that were truly so – he still would still be treated very badly.

That, sadly, is the nature of our country these days (some would argue we have always been thus and point to all manner of cases from the Salem witch trials to Alger Hiss, to the Rosenbergs, to the San Francisco 49ers quarterback now being shouted down for his refusals with respect to the US national anthem). Snowden’s actions, in many minds, constitute treason. I’m quite certain that most of the following of Donald Trump, for example, would want him in prison for life at best and hanged at worst.

After listening to Snowden on tape and video multiple times, I believe him to be a highly courageous and extremely ethical young man. He just might be the type who could weather such a storm and lead an otherwise productive life, like Daniel Ellsberg has for example. That might make him a martyr to some; but he will remain a villain to many others.

Am I for pardoning him? I would have to know a great deal more about the real impacts of his revelations – not the lies the government tells – before I could formulate my view. None of this truth is about to be forthcoming, so I really cannot make an informed judgment. It’s shameful because I don’t think any reasonable citizen can.

Mishi Choudhary
Technology lawyer

The essence of America’s precious freedom is the right to speak up. For people all over the world, especially in countries where whistleblowers’ only fate is death, Snowden has become a symbol of citizenship and moral courage. He has changed the way we feel about possibility of freedom.

He has taught us that in times of moral crisis, neutrality is not the side we want to be on. In pardoning Snowden, America strengthens itself and the ideas it stands for. Bring him home, honor him.

Barry Eisler
Bestselling novelist and former covert CIA operative

I wholeheartedly support a full presidential pardon for whistleblower Edward Snowden.

As a CIA officer 25 years ago, I knew the government classified too much information. Everyone knew it. But no one spoke up. And today the problem is far worse.

But because of Edward Snowden, we now know the head of US intelligence was lying to the Senate committee responsible for intelligence oversight. Programs concealed from the citizenry have been declared unconstitutional by federal courts. For the first time, the country has the minimal information necessary to grapple with the benefits and dangers of a surveillance apparatus far more vast and intrusive even than the one Senator Frank Church warned 40 years ago could lead to the eradication of privacy and the imposition of tyranny.

Surely in a democracy, the people have a right to know about the implementation of programs with risks as vast as that. Surely in a democracy, the people have a need to know.

That today we do know, that today we are able to engage in this critical conversation about how properly to govern ourselves, is almost entirely due to the conscience and courage of one man: Edward Snowden. For his service to his country, he deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom. But a presidential pardon might be acknowledgment enough.

Susan Buck-Morss
Philosopher and professor of political science at the CUNY Graduate Center

The charge of espionage against Snowden makes no sense. How can he be guilty as an agent of an enemy power, when his goal was to defend the people of the United States against secret and illegal actions by their own government?

A line between hero and traitor in this case is impossible to draw. And that is the deeper issue. What would a pardon of Edward Snowden signal? It would acknowledge the very principle of democratic rule. Nothing protects us from the abuses of executive power more effectively than their exposure by individual citizens who make them public and sound the alarm.

David Winnick
UK member of parliament and vice-chair of the Home Affairs Committee

From the start I thought that Edward Snowden had made a significant contribution in revealing the excesses and, in some instances, illegal surveillance carried out by US agencies.

If not for his actions, there would not have been the tightening up of such operations and we would never have known how even leaders of various democracies, such as Chancellor Merkel, had their phones tapped by the National Security Agency.

A half a century ago, Daniel Ellsberg was denounced in the US as a traitor for releasing the Pentagon Papers, which contained information concealed from the public about the war being waged against Vietnam. His actions have long since been vindicated, and there is a general consensus that what he did was absolutely right. Mr Ellsberg has strenuously defended Edward Snowden.

Hans-Christian Ströbele
Green party member of the German Bundestag

When I met Edward Snowden in Moscow in October 2013, he told me that he would eventually like to live in a country where democracy and the rule of law are respected. I can think of two ways to make that happen.

First, President Obama could pardon Snowden at the end of his last term, in the way other outgoing presidents have done in the past. Second, Snowden could be awarded the Nobel peace prize, which would bestow him a certain degree of immunity in the US even if he isn’t pardoned: during the cold war, for example, we saw that Soviet Union was unwilling to prosecute people who had been awarded with such an internationally recognised honour.

The key to both of these solutions doesn’t lie in our hands, but there is something we all can do. Like Oliver Stone’s new film, we can try to help emphasise that there is another side to Snowden’s story than the one that prevails in the US media: that this is a man with a lot of integrity, who did a great merit for the civil rights and privacy for the mankind and who knew what he was doing when making a extremely risky decision.

Cindy Cohn
Executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Whistleblower Edward Snowden’s disclosures provided powerful confirmation that the NSA was spying on the digital lives of hundreds of millions of innocent people, undermining digital security and attacking American companies. The leaks caused a sea change in policy and secrecy related to government spying that led to the first piece of legislation to rein in the NSA in over 30 years, reform to the secret Fisa court, and significant, long-overdue public releases of critical information by the government about its spying on innocent Americans as well as millions of others around the world.

The information he revealed was critical to starting a conversation about realigning a broken relationship between the intelligence community and the public. His motivations – and the impact of the leaks – were clearly to benefit the public and restore privacy and security to the internet.

The heavy price that the government seeks to exact – indicting him under the Espionage Act as if he had sold secrets to an enemy with no chance of explaining the broader public benefit – is wrong. Snowden’s behavior both before and after he brought this information to the media is that of a whistleblower who brought necessary public attention to a corrupt surveillance system still in need of further reform.

Mark Udall
Former US senator for Colorado and member of the select committee on intelligence

Strong oversight of our intelligence agencies is essential so the American people trust what they are doing to keep us safe. That trust was shaken when Edward Snowden disclosed the disconcerting truths about US surveillance that fueled my years-long effort, alongside Senator Wyden, to end the dragnet, warrantless collection of Americans’ communication records. Although Snowden’s actions aided my push for reform, the fact remains that Snowden broke an oath he willingly took to protect our national security and classified secrets.

I do not believe the president should pardon Snowden. You can make the case that he did our nation a service, and that is why I believe he should return to the United States to make that argument in court and to the public.

Ron Wyden
US senator for Oregon

I’m not going to sit in judgment on pending criminal charges, though I certainly don’t think there should be a double standard where defenders of particular programs can disclose classified information get and off scot-free, while critics of those programs go to prison.

I think it’s very clear that mass surveillance was never going to end until the public found out about it. That’s why I spent years urging the Bush and Obama administrations to begin this discussion with the public. I wish this debate had started earlier, but I’m glad it’s happening now.

Karen Greenberg
Director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University

What if there hadn’t been a Snowden? A program that violated the principles that this country holds dear may have continued to this day. A program that an appellate court in New York found illegal, that was so egregious in terms of law and civil liberties, may have continued or even been expanded.

Edward Snowden was immensely important and will only become more important as time goes on. Not only did he show the American public what was being done in their name and to them, he ended a program which, upon examination, national security and legal experts concluded did not work.

When considering whether or not he deserves to be pardoned, the president should remember that even former attorney general Eric Holder said that Snowden performed a public service. His revelations were the tidal wave the nation needed to change its ways. The importance of what he did for the country outweighs the law that he violated and the just move is a pardon for Edward Snowden.

Ladar Levison
Owner of webmail service Lavabit that he shut down in 2013 rather than comply with US government orders to facilitate spying on Snowden

Snowden has stated he would be willing to stand and be judged by a jury of peers, but doesn’t believe he would receive a fair trail. I believe the conduct I encountered proves his contention. The individuals responsible for investigating, prosecuting and adjudicating his actions have lied in court, ignored conflicts of interest and irrevocably tainted the evidence against him. I believe it amounts to prosecutorial misconduct.

The charges against Snowden should be dismissed with prejudice; just like the case against Daniel Ellsberg was dismissed. To quote Judge Byrne, from his decision in 1973: “The totality of the circumstances of this case offend a sense of justice.”

On the other hand, I think asking President Obama to pardon him is a lost cause. Snowden revealed misconduct by the very person who is being asked to grant him the pardon. If we were to petition anyone, it should be Congress, or possibly the four presidential candidates (Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green).

Lawrence Lessig
Law professor at Harvard Law School and former Democratic presidential candidate in 2016

There should be nothing less than a full pardon. The information that Snowden released to the public was critical: it made Americans aware of the way the law was being violated or at least subverted by unchecked government officials.

Then there was the manner in which he released the information. It was careful and limited, given the unresponsiveness he had experienced inside the NSA and from other branches of government.

Whistleblowing is an essential part of the architecture of checking government power. We’ve recognized the importance of whistleblowers in the past, and it’s entirely appropriate that Obama now recognizes the role that Snowden played in America in exposing the way in which extraordinary power was abused. Stewart Baker

Former general counsel of the National Security Agency

I am not in the “pardon Snowden” camp. And the longer he stays away, the fewer people will be in that camp.

In the early days after his leaks, Snowden was a bit of a paradox – a plausible, intelligent commentator who seemed to have done something that was irresponsible at best and actively hostile to US national security at worst. We were just not sure what to make of him.

But the public benefits of those leaks were spent within a week or two, as they spurred a genuine debate about surveillance. And it turned out they could have been achieved by leaking three or four documents.

In the years since then, the massive flood unleashed by Snowden has been used for one purpose only – to harm US intelligence and national interests by exposing perfectly legitimate intelligence sources and methods.

As the debate wanes, the ongoing harm to the United States remains front and center. So the longer he stays away the more he becomes, in reality and in perception, simply one of Putin’s tools. And a willing tool to boot, one suspects. That fact naturally casts a new and unflattering light on his deeds in 2013.

Salil Shetty
Secretary-general of Amnesty International

Edward Snowden clearly acted in the public interest. He sparked one of the most important debates about government surveillance in decades, and brought about a global movement in defence of privacy in the digital age. Punishing him for this sends out the dangerous message that those who witness human rights violations behind closed doors should not speak out.

It is ironic that it is Snowden who is being treated like a spy when his act of courage drew attention to the fact that the US and UK governments were illegally spying on millions of people without their consent.

The Existential Madness of Putin-Bashing

By Robert Parry, Consortium News

14 September 16

Official Washington loves its Putin-bashing but demonizing the Russian leader stops a rational debate about U.S.-Russia relations and pushes the two nuclear powers toward an existential brink, writes Robert Parry.

rguably, the nuttiest neoconservative idea – among a long list of nutty ideas – has been to destabilize nuclear-armed Russia by weakening its economy, isolating it from Europe, pushing NATO up to its borders, demonizing its leadership, and sponsoring anti-government political activists inside Russia to promote “regime change.”

This breathtakingly dangerous strategy has been formulated and implemented with little serious debate inside the United States as the major mainstream news media and the neocons’ liberal-interventionist sidekicks have fallen in line much as they did during the run-up to the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Except with Russia, the risks are even greater – conceivably, a nuclear war that could exterminate life on the planet. Yet, despite those stakes, there has been a cavalier – even goofy – attitude in the U.S. political/media mainstream about undertaking this new “regime change” project aimed at Moscow.

There is also little appreciation of how lucky the world was when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 without some Russian extremists seizing control of the nuclear codes and taking humanity to the brink of extinction. Back then, there was a mix of luck and restrained leadership, especially on the Soviet side.

Plus, there were at least verbal assurances from George H.W. Bush’s administration that the Soviet retreat from East Germany and Eastern Europe would not be exploited by NATO and that a new era of cooperation with the West could follow the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Instead, the United States dispatched financial “experts” – many from Harvard Business School – who arrived in Moscow with neoliberal plans for “shock therapy” to “privatize” Russia’s resources, which turned a handful of corrupt insiders into powerful billionaires, known as “oligarchs,” and the “Harvard Boys” into well-rewarded consultants.

But the result for the average Russian was horrific as the population experienced a drop in life expectancy unprecedented in a country not at war. While a Russian could expect to live to be almost 70 in the mid-1980s, that expectation had dropped to less than 65 by the mid-1990s.

The “Harvard Boys” were living the high-life with beautiful women, caviar and champagne in the lavish enclaves of Moscow – as the U.S.-favored President Boris Yeltsin drank himself into stupors – but there were reports of starvation in villages in the Russian heartland and organized crime murdered people on the street with near impunity.

Meanwhile, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush cast aside any restraint regarding Russia’s national pride and historic fears by expanding NATO across Eastern Europe, including the incorporation of former Soviet republics.

In the 1990s, the “triumphalist” neocons formulated a doctrine for permanent U.S. global dominance with their thinking reaching its most belligerent form during George W. Bush’s presidency, which asserted the virtually unlimited right for the United States to intervene militarily anywhere in the world regardless of international law and treaties.

How Despair Led to Putin

Without recognizing the desperation and despair of the Russian people during the Yeltsin era — and the soaring American arrogance in the 1990s — it is hard to comprehend the political rise and enduring popularity of Vladimir Putin, who became president after Yeltsin abruptly resigned on New Year’s Eve 1999. (In declining health, Yeltsin died on April 23, 2007).

Putin, a former KGB officer with a strong devotion to his native land, began to put Russia’s house back in order. Though he collaborated with some oligarchs, he reined in others by putting them in jail for corruption or forcing them into exile.

Putin cracked down on crime and terrorism, often employing harsh means to restore order, including smashing Islamist rebels seeking to take Chechnya out of the Russian Federation.

Gradually, Russia regained its economic footing and the condition of the average Russian improved. By 2012, Russian life expectancy had rebounded to more than 70 years. Putin also won praise from many Russians for reestablishing the country’s national pride and reasserting its position on the world stage.

Though a resurgent Russia created friction with the neocon designs for permanent U.S. world domination, Putin represented a side of Russian politics that favored cooperation with the West. He particularly hoped that he could work closely with President Barack Obama, who likewise indicated his desire to team up with Russia to make progress on thorny international issues.

In 2012, Obama was overheard on an open mike telling Putin’s close political ally, then-President Dmitri Medvedev, that “after my election, I have more flexibility,” suggesting greater cooperation with Russia. (Because of the Russian constitution barring someone from serving more than two consecutive terms as president, Medvedev, who had been prime minister, essentially swapped jobs with Putin for four years.)

Obama’s promise was not entirely an empty one. His relationship with the Russian leadership warmed as the two powers confronted common concerns over security issues, such as convincing Syria to surrender its chemical-weapons arsenal in 2013 and persuading Iran to accept tight limitations on its nuclear program in 2014.

In an extraordinary op-ed in The New York Times on Sept. 11, 2013, Putin described his relationship with Obama as one of “growing trust” while disagreeing with the notion of “American “exceptionalism.” In the key last section that he supposedly wrote himself, Putin said:

“My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is ‘what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.’

“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”

Offending the Neocons

Though Putin may have thought he was simply contributing to a worthy international debate in the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence’s assertion that “all men are created equal,” his objection to “American exceptionalism” represented fighting words to America’s neocons.

Instead of engaging in mushy multilateral diplomacy, muscular neocons saw America as above the law and lusted for bombing campaigns against Syria and Iran – with the goal of notching two more “regime change” solutions on their belts.

Thus, the neocons and their liberal-interventionist fellow-travelers came to see Putin as a major and unwelcome obstacle to their dreams of permanent U.S. dominance over the planet, which they would promote through what amounted to permanent warfare. (The main distinction between neocons and liberal interventionists is that the former cites “democracy promotion” as its rationale and the latter justifies war under the mantle of “humanitarianism.”)

Barely two weeks after Putin’s op-ed in the Times, a prominent neocon, Carl Gershman, the longtime president of the U.S.-government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, issued what amounted to a rejoinder in The Washington Post on Sept. 26, 2013.

Gershman’s op-ed made clear that U.S. policy should take aim at Ukraine, a historically and strategically sensitive country on Russia’s doorstep where the Russian nation made a stand against the Tatars in the 1600s and where the Nazis launched Operation Barbarossa, the devastating 1941 invasion which killed some 4 million Soviet soldiers and led to some 26 million Soviet dead total.

In the Post, Gershman wrote that “Ukraine is the biggest prize,” but made clear that Putin was the ultimate target: “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

To advance this cause, NED alone was funding scores of projects that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ukrainian political activists and media outlets, creating what amounted to a shadow political structure that could help stir up unrest when the Ukrainian government didn’t act as desired, i.e., when elected President Viktor Yanukovych balked at a European economic plan that included cuts in pensions and heat subsidies as demanded by the International Monetary Fund.

When Yanukovych sought more time to negotiate a less onerous deal, U.S.-backed protests swept into Kiev’s Maidan square. Though representing genuine sentiment among many western Ukrainians for increased ties to Europe, neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist street fighters gained control of the uprising and began firebombing police.

Despite the mounting violence, the protests were cheered on by neocon Sen. John McCain, U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt and Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Victoria Nuland, the wife of neocon stalwart Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, which was a major promoter of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In a speech to Ukrainian business leaders on Dec. 13, 2013, Nuland reminded them that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.” By early February 2014, in an intercepted phone call, she was discussing with Pyatt who should lead a new government – “Yats is the guy,” she declared referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Nuland and Pyatt continued the conversation with exchanges about how to “glue this thing” or “midwife this thing,” respectively.

A Western-backed Putsch

The violence worsened on Feb. 20, 2014, when mysterious snipers opened fire on police and demonstrators sparking clashes that killed scores, including police officers and protesters. Though later evidence suggested that the shootings were a provocation by the neo-Nazis, the immediate reaction in the mainstream Western media was to blame Yanukovych.

Though Yanukovych agreed to a compromise on Feb. 21 that would reduce his powers and speed up new elections so he could be voted out of office, he was still painted as a tyrannical villain. As neo-Nazi and other rightists chased him and his government from power on Feb. 22, the West hailed the unconstitutional putsch as “legitimate” and a victory for “democracy.”

The coup, however, prompted resistance from ethnic Russian areas of Ukraine, particularly in the east and south. With the aid of Russian troops who were stationed at the Russian naval base in Sevastopol, the Crimeans held a referendum and voted by 96 percent to leave Ukraine and rejoin the Russian Federation, a move accepted by Putin and the Kremlin.

However, the West’s mainstream media called the referendum a “sham” and Crimea’s secession from Ukraine became Putin’s “invasion” – although the Russian troops were already in Crimea as part of the basing agreement and the referendum, though hastily organized, clearly represented the overwhelming will of the Crimean people, a judgment corroborated by a variety of subsequent polls.

Ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine also rose up against the new regime in Kiev, prompting more accusations in the West about “Russian aggression.” Anyone who raised the possibility that these areas, Yanukovych’s political strongholds, might simply be rejecting what they saw as an illegal political coup in Kiev was dismissed as a “Putin apologist” or a “Moscow stooge.”

While Official Washington and its mainstream media rallied the world in outrage against Putin and Russia, the new authorities in Kiev slipped Nuland’s choice, Yatsenyuk, into the post of prime minister where he pushed through the onerous IMF “reforms,” making the already hard lives of Ukrainians even harder. (The unpopular Yatsenyuk eventually resigned his position.)

Despite the obvious risks of supporting a putsch on Russia’s border, the neocons achieved their political goal of driving a huge wedge between Putin and Obama, whose quiet cooperation had been so troublesome for the neocon plan for violent “regime change” in Syria and Iran.

The successful neocon play in Ukraine also preempted possible U.S.-Russian cooperation in trying to impose an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement that would have established a Palestinian state and would have stymied Israel’s plans for gobbling up Palestinian territory by expanding Jewish settlements and creating an apartheid-style future for the indigenous Arabs, confining them to a few cantons surrounded by de facto Israeli territory.

Obama’s timid failure to explain and defend his productive collaboration with Putin enabled the neocons to achieve another goal of making Putin an untouchable, a demonized foreign leader routinely mocked and smeared by the mainstream Western news media. Along with Putin’s demonization, the neocons have sparked a new Cold War that will not only extend today’s “permanent warfare” indefinitely but dramatically increase its budgetary costs with massive new investments in strategic weapons.

Upping the Nuclear Ante

By targeting Putin and Russia, the neocons have upped the ante when it comes to their “regime change” agenda. No longer satisfied with inflicting “regime change” in countries deemed hostile to Israel – Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran, etc. – the neocons have raised their sights on Russia.

In that devil-may-care approach, the neocons are joined by prominent “liberal interventionists,” such as billionaire currency speculator George Soros, who pulls the strings of many “liberal” organizations that he bankrolls.

In February 2015, Soros laid out his “Russia-regime-change” vision in the liberal New York Review of Books with an alarmist call for Europe “to wake up and recognize that it is under attack from Russia” – despite the fact that it has been NATO encroaching on Russia’s borders, not the other way around.

But Soros’s hysteria amounted to a clarion call to his many dependents among supposedly independent “non-governmental organizations” to take up the goal of destabilizing Russia and driving Putin from office. As a currency speculator, Soros recognizes the value of inflicting economic pain as well as military punishment on a target country.

“The financial crisis in Russia and the body bags [of supposedly Russian soldiers] from Ukraine have made President Putin politically vulnerable,” Soros wrote, urging Europe to keep up the economic pressure on Russia while working to transform Ukraine into an economic/political success story, saying:

“…if Europe rose to the challenge and helped Ukraine not only to defend itself but to become a land of promise, Putin could not blame Russia’s troubles on the Western powers. He would be clearly responsible and he would either have to change course or try to stay in power by brutal repression, cowing people into submission. If he fell from power, an economic and political reformer would be likely to succeed him.”

But Soros recognized the other possibility: that a Western-driven destabilization of Russia and a failed state in Ukraine could either bolster Putin or lead to his replacement by an extreme Russian nationalist, someone far-harder-line than Putin.

With Ukraine’s continued failure, Soros wrote, “President Putin could convincingly argue that Russia’s problems are due to the hostility of the Western powers. Even if he fell from power, an even more hardline leader like Igor Sechin or a nationalist demagogue would succeed him.”

Yet, Soros fails to appreciate how dangerous his schemes could be to make Russia’s economy scream so loudly that Putin would be swept aside by some political upheaval. As Soros suggests, the Russian people could turn to an extreme nationalist, not to some pliable Western-approved politician.

Protecting Mother Russia

Especially after suffering the depravations of the Yeltsin years, the Russian people might favor an extremist who would take a tough stance against the West and might see brandishing the nuclear arsenal as the only way to protect Mother Russia.

Still, Official Washington can’t get enough of demonizing Putin. A year ago, Obama’s White House – presumably to show how much the President disdains Putin, too – made fun of how Putin sits with his legs apart.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest cited a photo of the Russian president sitting next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “President Putin was striking a now-familiar pose of less-than-perfect posture and unbuttoned jacket and, you know, knees spread far apart to convey a particular image,” Earnest said, while ignoring the fact that Netanyahu was sitting with his legs wide apart, too.

Amid this anything-goes Putin-bashing, The New York Times, The Washington Post and now Hillary Clinton’s campaign have escalated their anti-Putin rhetoric, especially since Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has offered some praise of Putin as a “strong” leader.

Despite the barrage of cheap insults emanating from U.S. political and media circles, Putin has remained remarkably cool-headed, refusing the react in kind. Oddly, as much as the American political/media establishment treats Putin as a madman, Official Washington actually counts on his even-temper to avoid a genuine existential crisis for the world.

If Putin were what the U.S. mainstream media and politicians describe – a dangerous lunatic – the endless baiting of Putin would be even more irresponsible. Yet, even with many people privately realizing that Putin is a much more calculating leader than their negative propaganda makes him out to be, there still could be a limit to Putin’s patience.

Or the neocons and liberal hawks might succeed in provoking a violent uprising in Moscow that ousts Putin. However, if that were to happen, the odds – as even Soros acknowledges – might favor a Russian nationalist coming out on top and thus in control of the nuclear codes.

In many ways, it’s not Putin who should worry Americans but the guy that might follow Putin.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).