The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin

Not particularly well written – best thing is the book chronicles all the interference by the USA in other county’s affairs for decades, especially in Latin America. The USA whining about anyone interfering in our farcical elections is the height of hypocrisy when we have NGOs the world over meddling in everyone else’s elections…except when we do it, we brag about it. (See Time magazine from 15 July 1996.)

Donald Trump didn’t win the presidency because of anything Russia did or didn’t do. He won because the opposition candidate was seriously flawed, so much so that she lost to an imbecile like him, after stealing the nomination from Sanders. Instead of getting all wound up about who leaked the Podesta emails, they should have been getting wound up about what a farce the entire Democratic primary process was.

Trump is the symptom, not the condition.

I’m a far left socialist and voted straight green party in the 2016 election as I strongly disliked and distrusted both corrupt candidates after the election all I’ve been hearing is how Russia hacked the election and how trump colluded with russia and that Jill Stein colluded with russia and it’s made me so angry because as much as I hate and despise trump there’s no evidence that Russia hacked our election and anyway if anyone hacked our election It’s our own government not Russia and then All these Russia theories about Jill Stein are insane because for the people like me who know Jill and were with her since the beginning through her whole campaign we know she would never do anything like that she hates trump and would never want him elected and she would never work with russia after reading this book it’s so informative and explains how it’s the U.S. Not Russia who have done regime change after regime change since after world war 2 and it’s the U.S. That has and continues to threaten world peace not Russia the U.S. War machine always need an enemy so we can use that enemy as an excuse to continue our imperial expansion across the world first it was the Soviet union and communism then it went to humanitarian intervention then it went to terrorism and now it’s back to Russia again even though their not communist anymore and even though modern day Russia is much weaker than the former Soviet union and has a much smaller military budget than the U.S. And NATO the book explains all of this and more and explains that peace and cooperation with russia is far more beneficial than war the book details all of the U.S. military Interventions Since after world war 2 and debunks the insane russia gate conspiracy theories every student in school and college should read this book in fact every American should read this book it Will change your whole perspective on politics and the real role the U.S. Has played on the world stage

I also Highly recommend oliver stones untold History of the United States it’s a documentary on both tv and book form and it’s amazing it’s currently on Netflix

Highly recommended

I have always suspected something deeply wrong with the portrayal of Russia as the source of all evil, and Kovalik makes clear the long and sordid history of not Russian, but American manipulation of the world’s governments, always seeking advantage for the capitalist-militarist class. The current push by both Deep State and Democratic Party principals, i.e. Hillary Clinton, to blame Russia for “influencing American elections” is ludicrous (and pathetic). Kovalik brings light to these politics.

Who does the author think is buying this book? Overwhelmingly Trump supporters.

The author is not a Trump supporter and he makes that clear. He is actually forthcoming about the fact that he does not like our president. He thinks our president ran on a campaign of “racism and xenophobia” and implies that constructing the wall is bad. He even thinks that we should atone for the misadventures of our ruling class by taking in displaced South American peoples. He thinks that “people of color” are being barred from voting properly and that reducing federal jobs is “bad.”

I get the impression the author is some kind of hippy who has a respectable job.

He is great when it comes to foreign policy. He has a working knowledge of all of America’s evil foreign wars over the past century and introduces the reader to many new books and thinkers.

But much of the book doesn’t even pertain to the title. There are long sections where he talks about South America, Africa, the Middle East, and about America’s foreign policy plunders. That’s the real heart of this book. The argument the author really wants to make is that we shouldn’t be vilifying Putin but ourselves.

He doesn’t really present much evidence for his premise in the title. He really just shows that Putin is acting rationally and suggests it was probably the CIA that leaked emails to Russia. He doesn’t have proof though.

He never actually uses the word Deep State. I don’t think he uses it even once. He probably just used it as a buzzword to entice Trump’s base.

I think many people will be disappointed with this book. Walking away from it, aside from telling people “Putin is just acting in his own interest. America is the bad guy. It’s actually the CIA that probably leaked emails,” I don’t really gain much from this. There’s myriad books out there that critique US Imperialism and I was looking more for something that proves how Trump is innocent of the whole “Russia collusion” thing. But the author isn’t really interested in that.

He does show how we scapegoat Russia, but doesn’t really bring much more to it than even the most basic person would know.

Thanks, I guess.

I found this book to be a good read and to present a lot of context about the behaviour of the US in world affairs. There doesn’t seem to be a lot new in this however – those familiar with the work of Chomsky will probably not pick up a great deal of extra information.
The reason I have scored this book 4/5 is that I expressly read it to better understand the way that interested parties in the US and beyond have been looking to set up a convenient enemy in Russia, thereby justifying the expansion of NATO membership, increased military spending and more intrusive online snooping and other things that people would not usually accept.
However I feel the author missed a trick here because most of the effort is expended in showing the dichotomy between generally stated motivations of the US (spreading democracy, freedom, human rights etc) and its actual behaviour and results. Personally, that was already very clear, so it’s a shame there really isn’t more content in the book establishing the way in which the scapegoating is actually being done. I felt that where this was discussed it was fairly cursory.
So overall – if you’d like an eyeopener about how the US actually behaves in the world versus it’s claimed behaviour, this is a good read. If you want a thorough analysis of how various groups are setting up a false ‘enemy’ in order to justify their goals (as I’d understood from the book’s title), it may not tick all the boxes for you.
Some other points would have been worth mentioning in the book as I think they help paint a picture of deliberate and apparently disparate attempts to scapegoat Russia:
– That the group Pussy Riot / Femen are apparently funded through Soros.
– In 2014 Sweden identifying a ‘Russian sub’ in their waters, having a big press scare about it, then right after announcing a military budget increase. Later admitting they knew it was a Swedish object after all.
– Mentioning that US-educated Saakashvili seems to constantly turn up in US-backed regime change operations, and that he started the Georgia war in 2008 despite the US/UK media pretending for a number of days that it was Russian forces that had started it.
– There’s a passing mention of Joe Biden’s son being named as a director of a Ukrainian gas company right after the Euro Maidan coup, but it’s not really followed through to explain the US law changes to sell LNG overseas, the building of the LNG terminal in New Orleans, and the violence in the fossil-fuel rich Donbass.
– The massive difference between how the liberation of Aleppo was reported in our media compared to the contemporaneous liberation of Mosul.
– How the annexation of Crimea happened at the same time as Israel announced further settlement building in the West Bank – only one of this cases triggered urgent cries from our politicians for sanctions. The other was quietly overlooked.
… and so on.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member