Harris gets CIA backing as Democrats vow more war, foreign intervention

Former CIA director Leon Panetta was a key figure behind Russiagate, a major supporter of Hillary Clinton and White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton.

A former head of the controversial intelligence agency endorsed the vice president on Thursday during the Democratic National Convention.

US Vice President Kamala Harris indicated on Thursday that she would continue her predecessor’s aggressive foreign policy in Gaza and Ukraine, while a former CIA director publicly backed the Democratic presidential candidate.

“As president, I will stand strongly with Ukraine and our NATO allies,” Harris said during her acceptance speech, expressing strong support for Kiev’s US-backed proxy war against Russia.

Former intelligence chief Leon Panetta also gave a speech praising Harris, with the controversial figure saying he was “proud” to have served in the U.S. military and as CIA director. U.S. military aggression in the Middle East during the so-called “War on Terror” is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of at least 4.5 million people, while the CIA has been implicated in numerous human rights abuses.

“The Democrats have really shown that this is an aggressive party and that the neoconservatives are in charge of the party,” Jeremy Kuzmarov, managing editor of CovertAction Magazine, noted on Sputnik’s The Final Countdown. “I mean, they brought Leon Panetta in earlier tonight. He’s a former CIA director who a key mastermind behind the drone war and a key figure behind Russiagate and a key supporter of Hillary Clinton and White House Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton.”

“In her speech, (Harris) talked about how (former U.S. President Donald) Trump was supposedly pampering (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 increased arms shipments to Ukraine. So that’s just a far-right position that they’re taking.”

“They are celebrating this war in Ukraine (which) has siphoned billions of hard-earned tax dollars into a sinkhole just like Afghanistan, and many of those weapons were stolen. And this party applauds that. So there they are.”

Corruption has long been recognized as endemic in Ukrainewhich experts have called “the most corrupt nation in Europe.” Earlier this year, a massive corruption scandal was revealed in which nearly $40 million in U.S. aid was stolen by officials in the country’s Defense Ministry. In June, it was revealed that Western military weapons supplied to Ukraine had been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of terrorists and European drug cartels.

Several neoconservative figures, such as Iraq War architect Bill Kristol, have shifted their allegiance 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 polls show that more and more Americans believe the U.S. has spent too much money financing Ukraine’s quixotic proxy war against Russia.

“There is much more money in Ukraine than in Israel and many civilians have been killed by those American weapons,” Kuzmarov noted. Kiev has carried out increasing attacks on Russian soil in recent months, killing scores of civilians, including children. Neo-Nazi groups in the Ukrainian military, such as the notorious Azov Battalion*, have made their ethnosupremacist intentions clear, with Azov founder Andriy Biletsky declaring his intention to “leading the white races of the world in a final crusade… against the Semitic-led Untermenschen (sub-humans).”

“The reporting on Ukraine has been abominable,” Kuzmarov claimed.It is totally Russophobic and totally one-sided. The plight of the people in Eastern Ukraine who are suffering like the people in Gaza has never reached the public consciousness because it has hardly been reported in any form, even in alternative media. I think (even) the alternative media is underreporting this.”

“Not a cent is raised for the children in Donbass who have been shelled and hit by mortar shells for the past 10 years or more, and not a dime is raised for it in American churches,” lamented host Steve Gill.