CCI Friends, the evidence is piling up –– trusted U.S. officials from earlier and wiser administrations are speaking out — more Americans are better informed every week — this can reach critical mass if each of us is sending this information out to our friends, business colleagues, family members, neighbors, church/synagogue groups, everyone we know. PLEASE be part of this effort to educate our mainstream friends on these issues. When the mainstream is aware of what has been happening behind their backs, the legitimacy for these campaigns of disinformation, enemy-making, pushing America toward wars, will stop.

All you need to do is copy and paste the below, then send to your contacts.

Thanks for your assistance!

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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Consortium News
July 3, 2018

Former US Envoy to Moscow Calls Intelligence Report on Alleged Russian Interference ‘Politically Motivated’

By Jack Matlock

Did the U.S. “intelligence community” judge that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election?Most commentators seem to think so. Every news report I have read of the planned meeting of Presidents Trump and Putin in July refers to “Russian interference” as a fact and asks whether the matter will be discussed. Reports that President Putin denied involvement in the election are scoffed at, usually with a claim that the U.S. “intelligence community” proved Russian interference. In fact, the U.S. “intelligence community” has not done so. The intelligence community as a whole has not been tasked to make a judgment and some key members of that community did not participate in the report that is routinely cited as “proof” of “Russian interference.”

I spent the 35 years of my government service with a “top secret” clearance. When I reached the rank of ambassador and also worked as Special Assistant to the President for National Security, I also had clearances for “codeword” material. At that time, intelligence reports to the president relating to Soviet and European affairs were routed through me for comment. I developed at that time a “feel” for the strengths and weaknesses of the various American intelligence agencies. It is with that background that I read the January 6, 2017 report of three intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, and NSA.

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Dear CCI Friends,

Check out the URL and article below authored by three highly-qualified US-Russia specialists. Tell us whether the Presidential Summit on July 16th makes sense to you or not.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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The Washington Times
July 10, 2018

Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki: The Triumph of Common Sense

By Edward Lozansky, James Jatras and Gilbert Doctorow

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The upcoming Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki is a triumph of common sense over bitterly anti-Russia politics in Washington and some European capitals. Prepared by National Security Advisor John Bolton, the summit is the culmination of President Trump’s efforts to reestablish lines of communication with the world’s other nuclear superpower that Barack Obama foolishly severed following the ideological agenda of the State Department and intelligence agencies.

In addition, the pre-summit visit of a delegation of Republican Members of Congress organized by Ambassador Jon Huntsman opens top-level lines of communication between the two sides and can help establish a minimum of mutual trust that has been missing for the last few years. If the decades of first Cold War taught us anything it was that machines fail, that humans are fallible, and that false attack alerts or misreading the intentions of the other side can easily lead to catastrophe.

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It’s disturbing to see these eight Republican Senators criticized for merely visiting Russia. Isn’t this what they should do as decision makers of whether we go to war or not? Are Democrats now the “war party”? Will every effort to decrease international tension now be criticized and politicized? This cycle started when Trump expressed the desire to improve relations with Russia. It became a political football when the Clinton campaign decided to use Russia as an election issue to cover up its loss against Trump.

According to the Democrats and the Washington Post, there’s nothing positive about this trip, and these Senators now “face scorn and ridicule”. Russian media didn’t help by acting like US cable news. An astonishing lack of good sense all around. I guess people simply don’t understand what is at stake—and it’s not who wins the next election: it’s whether planet earth will survive this push to war between two nuclearized nations. No one seems to comprehend this.

Meanwhile, if accusations are made against Russia without proof (the usual pattern), is Russia not allowed to claim itself not guilty?

Sharon Tennison and Sylvia Demarest
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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Washington Post
July 5, 2018

Republicans on Russia trip face scorn and ridicule from critics at home

By Karoun Demirjian

Republican lawmakers who went to Russia seeking a thaw in relations received an icy reception from Democrats and Kremlin watchers for spending the Fourth of July in a country that interfered in the U.S. presidential election and continues to deny it.

“Cannot believe GOP, once the party that stood strong against Soviets & only a decade ago sought to democratize the Middle East, is now surrendering so foolishly to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Kremlin’s kleptocracy — only two years ­after Russia interfered in U.S. election,” tweeted Clint Watts, an information warfare specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and frequent featured expert before congressional panels examining Russian influence operations.

“Russians wooing with a shopworn song — repugnant as nails on a blackboard,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in a Twitter post in response to the delegation’s trip. “They are enemies and adversaries, attacking us.”

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Friends, THIS IS BIG!  This would not be happening if there wasn’t determination and agreement on the part of Trump and others in the Republican party.

This is déjà vu for me.  I was there in 1993 when the notable Democrat and Republican Congressional delegation came to Russia. I was able to brief them in StPetersburg’s Consulate, thanks to an invitation from Consul General Jack Gosnell. Everything changed for us and for US-Russia relations afterward. Leaders of both parties were in the delegation–they were searching for a shred of hope that the relationship could work. They were open to our suggestions and began funding programs that brought the two citizenries together for training and downloading of workable grassroots solutions.

I don’t think funding will be possible today, but I look forward to the goodwill and intellectual support that may now be coming. It’s certainly needed!

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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The Duran
July 3, 2018

American Congressional Delegation Arrives in Moscow

Delegation made use of the Sapsan high-speed railway to travel between St Petersburg and Moscow on a six-day trip to Russia

By Seraphim Hanisch

There is an American congressional delegation traveling in the Russian Federation. According to TASS, the delegation has seven members:

• Senator Richard Shelby [R-Alabama]
• Senator John Kennedy [R-Louisiana]
• Senator John Hoeven III [R-North Dakota]
• Senator John Thune [R-South Dakota]
• Senator Jerry Moran [R-Kansas]
• Senator Steve Daines [R-Montana]
• Representative Kay Granger [R-Texas]

CNN reported that the delegation went to Russia at the invitation of the United States Ambassador to Russia, John Huntsman. The agenda is described as “high-level meetings”, though Senator Shelby declined to say specifically with whom.

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Friends, please read carefully the article below. It addresses directly what has happened, what is happening and what needs to happen across America. After reading the first four paragraphs at my Toyota dealership, I stopped and immediately sent the author my gratitude for presenting the truth in so few packed words––then voraciously read the remainder of it with deep appreciation after arriving back at my office.

Katrina vanden Heuvel has set the stage for what she terms “a desperately needed fierce and energetic citizen intervention—a movement that demands both a reckoning and a change in course.”

This is imminently doable leading up to 2019. Conditions in the U.S. and worldwide are shifting at a phenomenal rate. Rampant subterfuge and false rumors are now being exposed daily, such that even our disengaged mainstream population are beginning to open their eyes and minds and are shocked at what is happening daily in the media.

Let’s figure out how to join our networks, present our citizenry at large with “how to” options in which to participate in “citizen interventions”… so together we can make the most of this crucial period into which we are rapidly moving.

After reading the article below, send your ponderings, bold ideas and commitments to this process! We will share and discuss them on line … and more going forward.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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The Nation
June 20, 2018

Why We Need a Wider Foreign-Policy Debate

The establishment consensus has failed. Citizen intervention can change that.

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

A reckoning with America’s failed national-security policy is long overdue. Donald Trump’s reckless machinations are destructive, but so too is the bipartisan establishment consensus that has defined our role in the world for decades and remains remarkably unshaken, despite its evident bankruptcy.

Our calamitous misadventures in the Middle East and the global financial collapse of 2008 dramatically exposed the failures of this consensus. Yet while citizen movements have begun to transform domestic politics, they have been virtually invisible when it comes to foreign policy. This special issue of The Nation challenges what has been a remarkably narrow debate in this area. Without pretending to offer a grand strategy, it provides alternative perspectives, grounded in values widely shared by the American people. We seek to instigate not only a more open debate, but a new call to action.

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