Dear CCI Readers,

Regarding the article we posted, “Poll claims 10% of Russians have been tortured by the State,” we’ve had a large number of responses to this piece from Americans and Russians alike. None of them give the poll any validity at all.

The response below is from a Russian-American reader. I assume you will find it interesting. It underscores how dangerous it is for people to use one or a few words out of context to create a case of noxious slander. Millions of ordinary readers believe this disinformation, since they have no facts with which to judge. When propagandist writers are permitted or encouraged to write such pieces, it goes against everything our Founding Fathers intended for our nation.

I seriously question whether the Levada Center gave the information in this particular form and think it was more likely the twisting of words by the UK’s Independent, Moscow Times and the RFE/RL, who have been anti-Russia and propagandistic for decades.  The Levada Center in the past has been more fact-based than this article. Thank you Igor Brusil!

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Natylie’s Place
July 4, 2019
By Natylie S. Baldwin

Guards Outside of Black Dolphin Prison near Kazakh border. Photo courtesy of National Geographic.

On June 26th – 27th, the western-owned Moscow Times, The Independent (UK), and the U.S.-government funded RFE/RL all published articles about a poll put out by the independent (i.e. western funded) Levada Center claiming that 10 percent of all Russians have been tortured by Russian authorities.

I’m not suggesting that Russia is Candyland or that police there don’t abuse their authority. I’m aware that there are problems in their criminal justice system – as there are in many other nations, including in the west. If the claim would have been that 10 percent of all prisoners in Russia had been tortured, it would have certainly been in the realm of the plausible. But 10 percent of the entire population of Russia smelled fishy to me.

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Dear CCI friends,

Our September trip, CCI’s largest and most complicated ever, is requiring long hours of preparation, then travel to Russia from Sept 1 – 21. During this time, we will send you articles taken from the blog of one of our favorite writers/commentators, Natylie Baldwin. I hope you find Natylie’s articles as fascinating and insightful as we do.

Once the trip begins, we will send short articles and photo-journals from Russia to describe the first-hand information and impressions we are gleaning day by day. Stay tuned!

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Dear CCI friends,

I’m forwarding you another piece about the “D-Day Snub of Russia.” It provides graphics that show the fierce power with which German forces tore into Russia and the magnitude of losses incurred by the USSR. The earlier article I sent on “Snub of Russia on D-Day”  brought more personal “thank you” notes than any other topic we have printed in years. This tells something … what I’m not sure. But you obviously do care about injustice and the remaking of history by our media and leaders. I think you will appreciate the email below, “Today is June 22.”

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Why most Americans are right about foreign policy, and David Brooks is wrong.

June 17, 2019
Foreign Policy
By Stephen M. Walt

New York Times columnist David Brooks speaking at the Book Expo America in New York. (Photo by James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images)

This might be disturbing news to some readers, but the New York Times columnist David Brooks is very unhappy with the American people. Why? Because they don’t seem to be blindly following his views on foreign policy anymore. In fact, his latest column says their ideas about U.S. foreign policy “stink.”

To be specific, Brooks is troubled by some recent surveys of public opinion, which show declining public support for endless U.S. intervention overseas. He interprets these polls as evidence that Americans are abandoning traditional liberal internationalism and reverting to isolationism. This trend really bugs him because he believes U.S. leadership after World War II—and especially its promotion of the so-called liberal world order—was a selfless act of statesmanship that produced several generations of peace and prosperity. Now, alas, he thinks America is “withdrawing from the world,” and this trend is allowing “wolves” like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping to “fill the void” and letting countries like Iran destabilize the Middle East.

Is he right? Are the American people as misguided as he says? Should we be very afraid?

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