Former US State Department official and retired CIA intelligence officer Larry Johnson spoke with Sputnik about the new sanctions against Russian media announced by Secretary of State Antony Blinken Friday.
“Freedom of speech in America is under assault,” said Johnson as the Biden administration announced its latest punitive measures against Rossiya Segodnya, the parent company of RT and Sputnik. “I'm waiting to see if they're going to come down and sanction me, for example, for daring to appear on RT and offer commentary. I'm not compensated for that in any form or fashion.”
“This really is divorced from reality,” he continued, questioning the influence of the Russian-sponsored television network which ceased operations in the United States in 2022. Other observers such as ex-US Defense Department analyst Karen Kwiatkowski have suggested the move is intended to ramp up Russiagate hysteria leading up to November’s election.
“They are hoping to make a greater enemy of Russia… so that they can point the finger at their opponent, which is Donald Trump, and say that Russia wants him,” said Kwiatkowski in an interview with Sputnik. “They are creating news and media coverage of something that very much fits into their narrative, which is an anti-Russian narrative which is related to the campaign.”
The US Treasury Department and US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced similar measures just one week ago. Last month the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the homes of two prominent US dissidents who have offered commentary for RT and Sputnik.
“Never during the height of the Cold War did the United States ever take such drastic measures with respect to entities like Pravda and Tass,” Johnson claimed, referring to the two famous news outlets that operated from the Soviet Union. “Back then the United States had enough confidence in its own power of personal freedom that they didn't have to worry about [that], they weren't so insecure. What this reflects is just… one more symptom of a dying empire where they have to go out and attack others.”
“The only thing that can kill free speech is this kind of persecution,” said the former CIA analyst.
“It's irrational. And again, I think it's a symptom of a weakness on the part of the United States. Weakness and fear. That's where this originates… the United States is acknowledging that what it can't handle is the truth.”
“We are not allowed to speak freely about American foreign policy,” Kwiatkowski warned. “We see it in terms of the demonstrations across the country in support of Gaza, trying to end that genocide. We are not allowed in this country to criticize the American neoconservative foreign policy. That is a done deal. We do not have freedom of speech in that area at all.”
The official death toll of Israel’s US-backed campaign in Gaza inched past 41,118 as Blinken spoke Friday morning. A previous study published by respected British medical journal The Lancet estimated the likely ultimate death toll at around 186,000, while author and political activist Ralph Nader recently placed the number at over 200,000. Thousands of bodies remain unrecoverable underneath the rubble produced by heavy Israeli bombardment of the territory, one of the most densely-populated locations on Earth.