Former CIA Director Leon Panetta was a key figure behind Russiagate, a major supporter of Hillary Clinton and chief of staff in the Bill Clinton White House.
A former chief of the controversial intelligence agency voiced his support for the vice president at the Democratic National Convention Thursday.
US Vice President Kamala Harris signaled she would continue her predecessor’s hawkish foreign policy in Gaza and Ukraine Thursday as an ex-CIA director publicly endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate.
“As president I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies,” Harris declared during her acceptance speech, voicing strong support for Kiev’s US-backed proxy war against Russia.
Former intelligence chief Leon Panetta also delivered a speech praising Harris during which the controversial figure claimed he was “proud” to have served in the US Army and as CIA director. US military aggression throughout the Middle East during the so-called “War on Terror” is estimated to have caused the deaths of at least 4.5 million people while the CIA has been implicated in numerous human rights violations.
“The Democrats really showed that this is a hawkish party and really neoconservatives are in charge of the party,” noted CovertAction Magazine managing editor Jeremy Kuzmarov on Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program. “I mean, they brought out Leon Panetta earlier tonight. He’s a former CIA director who was a key mastermind of the drone war and a key figure behind Russiagate and a key supporter of Hillary Clinton and chief of staff in the Bill Clinton White House.”
“In her speech [Harris] was talking about how [former US President Donald] Trump supposedly coddled [foreign leaders] like Putin, and that’s totally false,” he continued. “Trump had a pretty hardline policy toward Russia. He pulled out of the INF Treaty. He ramped up weapons supplies to Ukraine. So that’s just like an extreme right-wing position that they’re adopting.”
“They’re celebrating this war in Ukraine [that] siphoned off billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars into a sinkhole just like Afghanistan, and a lot of those weapons have been stolen. And this party is cheerleading for that. So that’s where they are.”
Corruption has long been recognized as endemic in Ukraine, which experts have noted is “the most corrupt nation in Europe.” Earlier this year, a massive corruption scandal was uncovered that saw almost $40 million in US aid stolen by officials in the country’s defense ministry. In June, it was revealed that Western military-grade weapons supplied to Ukraine have been sold on the black market, ending up in the hands of terrorists and European drug cartels.
Various neoconservative figures such as Iraq War architect Bill Kristol have shifted allegiances to the Democratic Party in recent years as Republicans have become increasingly critical of foreign intervention under the banner of Trump’s “America First” ethos. Recent polling shows increasing numbers of Americans believe the US has spent too much money funding Ukraine’s quixotic proxy war on Russia.
“The money that’s got into Ukraine is far greater than Israel and many civilians have been killed with those US weapons,” noted Kuzmarov. Kiev has increasingly launched attacks on Russian soil in recent months, killing a number of civilians including children. Neo-Nazi groupings in Ukraine’s military such as the notorious Azov Battalion* have made their ethno-supremacist intentions clear, with Azov founder Andriy Biletsky declaring his intention to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].”
“The reporting on Ukraine has been abysmal,” Kuzmarov claimed. “It’s been totally Russophobic, totally one-sided. The plight of the eastern Ukrainian people who suffer like the people of Gaza has never struck the consciousness of the public because it’s barely been reported at all in any outlet, even alternative. I think [even] the alternative media is short on this.”
“Not a dime [is] being raised for the children in Donbass who’ve been shelled and hit with mortar strikes for the last 10 years or more, and not a dime being raised in American churches for that,” host Steve Gill lamented.
