Dr. Stephen Cohen, a Russia scholar and longtime contributing editor at The Nation, laments what he perceives to be the absence of debate over US policy towards Ukraine. “The mainstream media has deleted people such as myself who are arguing for a change of policy,” he says. Appearing here on The Thom Hartmann Program, Cohen reviews the competing narratives as to what sparked the crisis in Ukraine and what it would take to end it. He argues that we should desist from Manichean posturing and engage with the possibility that the US does indeed bear some responsibility for the ongoing violence. Forcing the question of US culpability into public discourse is essential, he says, “because if we’re half at fault, and Russia’s half at fault, that’s the beginning of a negotiation.”
—David Kortava