Mark Ames 3 of 7

Mark Ames, author of The Cold War that Wasnt in The Nation, discusses the dominant narrative and ideological underpinnings in the U.S. press regarding the recent Georgian attack on South Ossetia and subsequent Russian counterattack on Georgia, the attempt to portray Russia as the aggressor by floating the idea of a first-strike cyber war despite the lack of any evidence, the alleged poisoning of Ukraines Victor Yushchenko and the current dispute between Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko over her reaction to the Georgia war, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, the precedent set by U.S. intervention in Kosovo, the danger of putting defensive missiles in Eastern Europe while the U.S. foreign policy establishment contemplates first strike capability, U.S. NED support for the Russian National Bolsheviks, the shock therapy robbery of Russian resources under Yeltsins autocracy in the 1990s and the consequences.

Mark Ames is a journalist who has written for several publications including the New York Press, The Nation and GQ Russia and is the founding editor and regular contributor of the Moscow-based newspaper The eXile. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion From Reagans Workplaces to Clintons Columbine and Beyond and The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia.