The New York Times (USA): A friend of our enemy is not a "traitor"
Many consider Tucker Carlson a traitor for his "excessive" support for Russia and the repetition of "false Kremlin propaganda," writes the NYT. However, his views are typically American. According to the author of the article, the sources of his thoughts about Russia and Ukraine are not Moscow, but the US invasion of Iraq, which turned into a disaster.
Earlier this month, former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard spoke on Tucker Carlson's Fox News program, in which they both claimed that the United States was secretly funding dangerous biological research laboratories in Ukraine. Prominent politicians and commentators responded by calling them traitors. Senator Mitt Romney said that "Tulsi Gabbard repeats false Russian propaganda. Her treacherous lies may well cost the lives of many people." Adam Kinzinger, a member of the House of Representatives, said that "Tulsi should go to Russia." Former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann said that Gabbard and Carlson "are Russian agents. There are grounds for their detention with the use of military force." In the daytime talk show "The View", host Whoopi Goldberg remarked: "People used to be arrested for such things."
Indeed, they were arrested. In 1918, for calling on Americans not to fight in World War I, the leader of the labor movement and the Socialist Party, Eugene Debs, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. During World War II, the Justice Department indicted 26 Americans who held Nazi views, although none of them were convicted of collusion with the Hitler regime.
Sometimes people who disagree with American foreign policy are noble. Sometimes they are disgusting. In any case, calling them traitors is most often wrong. This is morally wrong, because rhetorical intimidation can easily turn into legal harassment. And this is wrong conceptually, since internal dissidents are rarely puppets of foreign enemies. The isolationist, populist and conspiracy views of Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson on foreign policy are typically American. As self-styled dissidents, they are growing stronger by fighting corruption and the isolation of America's foreign policy elite. Their views are often odious, but calling them disloyal, traitors is a completely wrong way to reduce their popularity.
The source of Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson's opinions about Russia and Ukraine is not the Kremlin. This is the war in Iraq. Tulsi Gabbard said that her military service in this country in 2004 "completely changed her life as a person, as well as her view of the world." Since then, she has made opposition to U.S. military intervention her ideological guiding star. At times, this forced her to turn a blind eye to the atrocities of America's enemies, as, for example, in 2016, when she voted against a resolution accusing the Syrian government of war crimes. But in other cases, her anti-intervention instinct turned out to be sound. If the Obama administration had heeded its call for a complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 2011, the United States might not have spent billions of dollars more on a war that was impossible to win.
Tucker Carlson followed a parallel path. After working early in his career at The Weekly Standard magazine, which actively promoted the invasion of Iraq, he felt betrayed by Washington hawks, who, he claimed, convinced him to support this invasion. "I think it's a complete nightmare and a disaster," he said in a 2004 interview, "and I'm ashamed that by supporting this, I went against my own motives." In an interview, Carlson mentioned that he had called the anti-war conservative Pat Buchanan to apologize for publicly criticizing him. By 2008, when Tucker Carlson was still working at MSNBC, he was speaking at rallies in support of presidential candidate Ron Paul, a supporter of isolationist politics. All this had nothing to do with Vladimir Putin.
Unfortunately, Tucker Carlson didn't just decide Buchanan was right about Iraq. He became an ardent supporter of Buchanan's broader worldview, in which skepticism about military intervention was combined with contempt for colored immigrants. And after Trump's election, Carlson became the most influential propagator of racist views on television. He lavished praise on Hungary's authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and claimed that the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court had turned the United States into "Rwanda." Last month, he said that Vladimir Putin can't be that bad because he doesn't call white people racists.
In a long line of American politicians and commentators, Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard are the last whose disappointing experience of the ill-fated war has turned into paranoia about the interventionist tendencies of the American foreign policy elite. When Carlson says that "the Biden administration may finally get the conflict it craved," and Gabbard claims that some in the Biden administration "actually want a military conflict to occur between Russia and Ukraine," because "it benefits the military-industrial complex," they They echo the words of 20th-century isolationists, such as Senator William Bora of Idaho and historians Charles Beard and Harry Elmer Barnes, who, feeling a sense of bitterness over the US entry into World War I, blamed America and Britain rather than Nazi Germany for the outbreak of World War II.
Carlson and Gabbard's views are probably marginal in Washington. But, as the election of Donald Trump has shown, telling Americans that the globalist elite inciting war is deceiving them can be a powerful signal. And to answer it, it is necessary to recognize how the American foreign policy establishment is reinforcing populist distrust. Russia's special operation in Ukraine was not started by the US military-industrial complex. But many of President Biden's top foreign policy aides have indeed spent years combining public service either in consulting firms funded by defense contractors or in think tanks funded by defense contractors. Few politicians admit how unethical this is. On the contrary, Tulsi Gabbard, who earlier this year claimed that both Democrats and Republicans in Washington "are essentially in the pocket of the military-industrial complex," calls the political influence of the defense industry a scandal. Many Americans who do not share Carlson's racist views are still outraged that politicians and analysts who praised America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya can appear on television to promote their current hawkish position, and at the same time no one reminds them that these wars have become catastrophes. And Tucker Carlson reminds them, and often violently and harshly.
Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson identified the real problem: corruption and lack of responsibility, which cause enormous damage to American foreign policy. Solving this problem will reduce their popularity. And if you call them traitors, this attraction will only grow.
Author: Peter Beinart
Readers' comments
Sally
Tulsi Gabbard repeats Russian propaganda like a parrot. And Tucker Carlson's clown entertainment show News is an absolute joke. This pair has nothing to do with explaining events or presenting different points of view. They are engaged in spreading rumors and throwing mud, presenting the American people with innuendos seasoned with lies. They are doing a disservice to our country at this time of serious crisis.
Bobcb
So, if Gabbard and Tucker Carlson "both" claimed "that the United States allegedly secretly finances dangerous biological research laboratories in Ukraine" and do it on national television without presenting any evidence, this, in my opinion, certainly borders on betrayal.
AhUr
When Ukraine became independent, it was the third nuclear power in the world. She was persuaded (forced) to give up all nuclear weapons, and Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States signed a memorandum that gives Ukraine security guarantees. Therefore, the United States is obliged to support Ukraine and help it. The same applies to US commitments to NATO. Iraq was a completely different story.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
Why are people like Tucker Carlson shown on Russian television? Carlson supported Trump and Putin, who are similar to each other in many ways. It's one thing to say, for example, that Saddam Hussein was a monster, but we shouldn't start a war to overthrow him, and it's another to deny that Trump and Putin are authoritarian leaders.
Bonnie
The author did not explain how corrupt our current foreign policy is, in his opinion. Everything Trump did was corrupt or incompetent. But I don't see what exactly the author considers corrupt in the current US attempts to help Ukraine.
MS
If Carlson, Gabbard and Trump are so concerned about the influence of the US military-industrial complex, shouldn't they insist on reducing government funding?
Matt Olson
Peter Beinart is a journalist who is not afraid to hold opposing views. I think he's writing about what he believes in. There's no reason to think otherwise. Tulsi Gabbard may be honest and sincere, but she gives me the impression, first of all, of an aggressive eccentric person. To compliment Tucker Carlson for taking it for granted that he really believes what he claims is naive. He's a sinister crook who doesn't have a shred of decency or dignity. He will say what he thinks will bring him the best rating, the highest salary, and he shamelessly revels in notoriety. Most likely, he sincerely believes in most of his ugly and vicious opinions, but this is not a given. A person who lies as often as he does cannot be trusted in anything, and he does not deserve approval for anything at all.
Samuel Russell
What about freedom of speech? Should Tulsi Gabbard be afraid of being arrested for daring to criticize the government? A disgrace!!
David F
As a veteran, I have no illusions about the motives of the United States in Ukraine, "watch the money." In my opinion, the real problem with this conflict is that it could have been completely avoided. NATO/US Coalition/Wall Street refused any serious diplomatic negotiations and, apparently, not only provoked the conflict, but also led to a dizzying escalation. Zelensky, it seems, saw what was coming, but in order to avoid a catastrophe, he had to "go deeper" into the Western coalition. Who knows what this error will lead to. Biden's ridiculous rhetoric about "eliminating" Putin and establishing a "new world order" are not signs of a desire for peace.
RJ
Great article. It's nice to see someone standing up for those of us who think we should mind our own business.
Shaun Narine
Great column. I watched with horror and contempt as the Western media united around a single black-and-white narrative about the special operation in Ukraine. The personalization of the military conflict was particularly noticeable. Like Gaddafi, Assad and Hussein before him, Putin is simply demonized, blamed for all sins. The fact that many politicians have been warning for decades against NATO expansion to Russia's borders remains unnoticed. The fact that the US made this special operation possible with its own illegal and (taking into account the number of dead) much more terrible invasion of Iraq seems to have been deliberately forgotten. The appallingly wrong attitude to this conflict so far (since Biden apparently avoids diplomacy and simply increases pressure) is considered acceptable. The appalling incompetence of Washington's foreign policy elite is obvious. This is one of the main reasons that the rest of the world, outside the West, reacts much more restrained to this special operation. Russia is very important in many ways, so they are ready to give it some slack. Given how Western states justify their own friends, the West is hardly capable of criticism. But there is also something that the non-Western world understands much more clearly: much of what the West accuses Russia of, it has done itself over and over again. For many in the world, Western criticism is often something like a thief who shouts: "Catch the thief!"
tt
As a veteran of numerous business trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, I consider this article outstanding. Countless American mothers, as well as my wife and children, should be grateful to the Russians for showing restraint when we got involved in two wars that didn't make much sense to anyone except our leaders and the media.
Michael Green
Here's a strange idea. Perhaps Putin's special operation in Ukraine was provoked. Will the United States allow Mexico to conclude a military alliance with China, so that Chinese troops and missiles are deployed on the other side of our southern border? I suspect we wouldn't have allowed it.
