In Memorium Diana Johnstone

In Memorium Diana Johnstone

Paul Craig Roberts

Last night humanity lost a voice and the force was weakened. Diana Johnstone who spent her life exposing false narratives passed away at 92 years of age.

She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BA in Russian Studies and a PhD in French Literature. She spent most of her life in Europe as an independent foreign correspondent. She opposed American military aggression in Vietnam, bear-baiting of Russia, and exposed the fake narrative used to hide the American destruction of Yugoslavia. Her exposure of the Yugoslavian narrative brought out the usual defenders of the lies, but Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, John Pilger, and Tariq Ali came to her defense. Alexander Cockburn, who founded CounterPunch, called her “an excellent journalist.”

In 2022 Johnstone wrote that the cruel practice of bait-baiting has long since been banned as inhumane. “And yet today, a version of bear-baiting is being practiced every day against whole nations on a gigantic international scale.  It is called United States foreign policy. It has become the regular practice of the absurd international sports club called NATO. United States leaders, secure in their arrogance as ‘the indispensable nation,’ have no more respect for other countries than the Elizabethans had for the animals they tormented. The list is long of targets of US bear baiting, but Russia stands out as prime example of constant harassment.  And this is no accident.  The baiting is deliberately and elaborately planned. As evidence, I call attention to a 2019 report by the RAND corporation to the US Army chief of staff entitled “Extending Russia.” Actually, the RAND study itself is fairly cautious in its recommendations and warns that many perfidious tricks might not work.  However, I consider the very existence of this report scandalous, not so much for its content as for the fact that this is what the Pentagon pays its top intellectuals to do: figure out ways to lure other nations into troubles US leaders hope to exploit. The official US line is that the Kremlin threatens Europe by its aggressive expansionism, but when the strategists talk among themselves the story is very different.  Their goal is to use sanctions, propaganda and other measures to provoke Russia into taking the very sort of negative measures (‘over-extension’) that the US can exploit to Russia’s detriment. https://middle-east-online.com/node/758961

Diana Johnstone was a contributor to this website. https://paulcraigroberts.org/a-five-star-column-by-diana-johnstone/  Here is my review of her remarkable book, Circle in the Darkness. https://paulcraigroberts.org/a-light-in-the-darkness-2/

I am left with the question where is her replacement?