{"id":1143670,"date":"2023-07-20T04:17:31","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T04:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/?p=13142"},"modified":"2023-07-20T04:17:31","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T04:17:31","slug":"anderson-cooper-is-a-disgusting-cia-goon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/07\/20\/anderson-cooper-is-a-disgusting-cia-goon\/","title":{"rendered":"Anderson Cooper Is A Disgusting CIA Goon"},"content":{"rendered":"Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley)<\/em><\/a>:<\/p> <\/iframe><\/div><\/div> <\/figure>In a\u00a0recent CNN interview<\/a>\u00a0of US presidential candidate Cornel West,\u00a0former CIA intern<\/a>\u00a0Anderson Cooper argued that the US invasion of Iraq was morally superior to the Russian attack on the city of Grozny.<\/p>Pushing back against West\u2019s claim that NATO provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine and his call for ceasefire negotiations, Cooper argued that Putin was too evil and murderous to agree to stop slaughtering people.<\/p> <\/iframe><\/div><\/div> <\/figure>\u201cI mean, you saw what he did to Grozny in the nineties,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cI mean, he flattened that city. Civilians were trapped in that city. The world didn\u2019t come to the rescue of Grozny. He did exactly what he wanted to do. I mean, unchecked, he will slaughter people.\u201d<\/p>\u201cWell, I mean, unchecked, he will slaughter folk, unchecked, what we did in Iraq was slaughtering people, unchecked,\u201d West replied, when Cooper began frantically interrupting him.<\/p>\u201cNation states do that and they are wrong. And when they\u2019re wrong, you have to point it out,\u201d West continued while Cooper talked over him.<\/p>\u201cLook, again, I respect you,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cYou know I love you, but I do think it\u2019s inappropriate to compare the Russian bombing of Grozny, and what we witnessed there with the war in Iraq. I mean, to say that innocents were killed. I mean, there\u2019s no doubt about it. I mean, the horrible things happen-\u201d<\/p>\u201cHalf a million Iraqis killed, my brother? Half a million,\u201d interjected West.<\/p>\u201cI certainly understand,\u201d said Cooper. \u201cI also saw a lot of Americans getting killed. And I saw, you know, the horrors of Saddam Hussein.I don\u2019t think it\u2019s accurate to compare the pummeling of a city by Russian artillery, with civilians inside, pummeling every single day with the intention of just destroying and flattening a city with actions the US took.\u201d<\/p> <\/iframe><\/div><\/div> <\/figure>Mainstream estimates for the number of civilians killed in the Battle of Grozny range from\u00a0five thousand to eight thousand<\/a>. Estimates for the number of people killed as a result of the Iraq invasion range\u00a0into the millions<\/a>. One was a single battle in one city, the other was a years-long nationwide war which plunged an entire region into violence and chaos. Cooper is correct that it\u2019s inaccurate to compare the two, but he\u2019s obviously incorrect that this is because the Iraq invasion was\u00a0less<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0depraved.<\/p>Think about the kind of mentality you\u2019d need to have to feel like it\u2019s legitimate to claim a US war for power and profit is morally superior to a Russian attack which killed far, far fewer people. Think of all the things you\u2019d have to hold as true in order to make that make sense in your mind.<\/p>For one, you\u2019d have to believe that the US only uses its military for noble reasons and with noble intentions. For another, you\u2019d have to believe that your own government only kills civilians by accident while other governments only kill civilians because they are evil monsters who enjoy committing war crimes. It would probably also help that perspective make sense if you believed that Arab lives are worth a tiny fraction of what white lives are worth.<\/p>It\u2019s literally this meme put into action:<\/p> <\/picture><\/div> <\/figure>Cooper immediately\u00a0followed<\/a>\u00a0West\u2019s appearance with an interview with Democratic Party swamp monster James Carville, who promptly began\u00a0smearing West<\/a>\u00a0as a \u201cmenace\u201d and a \u201cthreat to the continued constitutional order in the United States.\u201d<\/p>Carville then went on to assert that former Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who is West\u2019s campaign manager, is \u201calmost certainly an agent of the Russian government.\u201d<\/p>To substantiate his claim that Cornel West\u2019s campaign manager is a secret agent of the Russian government, Carville urged Cooper\u2019s audience to \u201cGoogle photo, General Flynn, Vladimir Putin, Jill Stein.\u201d<\/p>Carville knows that telling CNN\u2019s viewers to google those words will produce\u00a0a photo<\/a>\u00a0of Stein, Flynn and Putin at a table together. What Carville does not tell CNN\u2019s viewers is that Stein\u00a0has provided<\/a>\u00a0a perfectly adequate explanation of what she was doing at that event.<\/p>The photo was taken at an RT conference back in 2015, when meeting with Russians was not considered an outrageous scandal. Stein says she attended the event because she saw it as an opportunity to push her usual agendas of peace and environmentalism. She says she didn\u2019t interact with Putin or Flynn, that she wasn\u2019t paid for her appearance, and that RT offered to pay for her travel but she declined the offer. Nothing in the comprehensive investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election has turned up a single shred of evidence that any of Stein\u2019s claims are false, which means the claim that the photo in question is proof that she works for the Kremlin is completely baseless.<\/p>So Carville was actively deceiving CNN\u2019s audience about Jill Stein, and about Cornel West\u2019s presidential campaign by extension. The journalistically responsible thing to do would have been to interrogate Carville\u2019s wild claims, but Cooper let them slide through completely unchecked. Calling a presidential candidate\u2019s campaign manager a secret Russian agent is about as incendiary an accusation as you can possibly make, and Cooper just accepted it as an established fact and moved on.<\/p>As far as Anderson Cooper is concerned, criticizing the US for the destruction of Iraq requires not just interrogation but immediate hostile opposition, while falsely accusing West of working with a literal Russian agent doesn\u2019t even merit a single follow-up question.<\/p>That\u2019s how unscrupulous you have to be to get elevated to the highest echelon of American news media. Those are the depths you have to be willing to plunge to in defense of the world\u2019s most powerful and destructive government. That\u2019s how low you have to be willing to sink to make\u00a0$12 million a year<\/a>\u00a0working in the mainstream press like Anderson Cooper does. These are the kinds of people who are teaching Americans what to believe about their nation and their world. And that\u2019s precisely why everything\u2019s so messed up.<\/p>____________<\/p>All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. My work is\u00a0<\/em>entirely reader-supported<\/em><\/a>, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on\u00a0<\/em>Patreon<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Paypal<\/em><\/a>, or\u00a0<\/em>Substack<\/em><\/a>, buying an issue of my\u00a0<\/em>monthly zine<\/em><\/a>, and following me on\u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Twitter<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Soundcloud<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/em>YouTube<\/em><\/a>. If you want to read more you can\u00a0<\/em>buy my books<\/em><\/a>. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list\u00a0<\/em>on Substack<\/em><\/a>, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I\u2019m trying to do with this platform,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/em><\/a>. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.<\/em><\/p> <\/picture><\/div> <\/figure>Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Z<\/p> \n

This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): In a\u00a0recent CNN interview\u00a0of US presidential candidate Cornel West,\u00a0former CIA intern\u00a0Anderson Cooper argued that the US invasion of Iraq was morally superior to the Russian attack on the city of Grozny. Pushing back against [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8398,1775,10322,11809,58308,1783,4,583],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1143670"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180755,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143670\/revisions\/1180755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1143670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1143670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1143670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}