Dear CCI Friends and Colleagues,

A Russian whom we Americans love and respect, President Mikhail Gorbachev, spoke out yesterday. His health is in a precarious place and has been for some time, but speaking out on the state of our world seems to give him the impetus to stay alive till now.

In September just passed we had an appointment with President Gorbachev which he was unable to keep due to his condition that day. His devoted interpreter and friend for over 40 years, Pavel Palazhchenko, met with us for two hours shortly thereafter. Our ageing hero is rarely able to keep appointments these days, but even so, still sends out strong messages. His insistence is that we Americans and Russians MUST resurrect our former good relations; or else humanity may cease to exist.

Below is his latest message and following it are several other URL’s delivered in the past few days. Study them and think seriously with us what we can do to get Gorbachev’s messages out to our American friends who don’t take seriously the imminent danger in which we now find ourselves.

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Riva Enteen reports on CCI’s recent delegation to Russia and the chance to consider the country and its recent turbulent history from the vantage point of people living there.

Consortium News
October 23rd, 2019
By Riva Enteen

I just came home to California from a 50-person citizen diplomacy delegation to Russia to ponder my neighbor’s bumper sticker that says “Just pretend it’s all OK.” That’s the American state of mind, but it doesn’t extend to Russians, who are painfully aware of war and its death and destruction. The still pervasive images of wheat in the cities and towns reflect the necessity of feeding the people. The US unapologetically operates on the principle that war is good for business. Russians know war too deeply to accept that premise.

Russians call WWII the Great Patriotic War because of all the allies, they lost the most people (27 million) by a wide margin and fought the longest to defeat the Nazis. The siege of Leningrad lasted an almost incomprehensible 900 days. There is a visceral understanding of war in Russia, while in the US war is so sanitized that the corporate media is forbidden to show coffins draped in American flags.

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Dear CCI Readers,

Enjoy Natylie Baldwin’s latest piece. It’s very timely and has a different perspective than our U.S. mainstream media.

Rather than continuing these dangerous wars throughout the Middle East, doesn’t it make sense to stop them and create solutions that allow all sides a reasonable outcome? It just takes honorable diplomacy, common sense and goodwill. No one gets everything they want, but the outcome is far better than endless killing fields and refugees. Removing our troops from Syria is one thing on which I can agree with Trump.

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Dear CCI followers,

Finally, Graham Fuller, former U.S. senior CIA official and author of numerous books on the Middle East, makes sense of the Middle-East and Syria dilemma today––in addition to the highly confusing situation in which our country has been knee-deep in for decades. Our media sees Syria and the region as a U.S.-Russia confrontation. Even as Fuller makes clear the history, high level Democrats and Republicans alike are still against pulling our soldiers out and stopping wars in the region.

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UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY: LAVROV SAYS WEST IS WASTING ITS TIME TRYING TO UNDERMINE RUSSIA’S PARTNERSHIP WITH CHINA; PUTIN REFERS TO RUSSIA & CHINA AS “ALLIED RELATIONSHIP”; UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT REITERATES THAT HIS PRIORITY AS PRESIDENT IS TO END DONBAS WAR WHILE U.S. STATE DEPT. APPROVES $39M IN MILITARY AID TO KIEV

Natylie’s Place
October 17, 2019
Natylie Baldwin

In a huge blow to the editorial board of the NYT, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov, in his speech to the UN General Assembly last month, said that the west’s attempts to undermine the partnership between Russia and China are a waste of time.

To reinforce the point, in his October 3 remarks at the Valdai conference, president Putin referred to Russia’s relationship with China as “an allied relationship in the full sense.” He also announced that Russia will be helping China create an early warning missile defense system:

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